


Pressing On

by ICanStopAnytime



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Family Drama, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-08-26 08:08:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 64,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16677823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ICanStopAnytime/pseuds/ICanStopAnytime
Summary: What if the time jump revealed a very different future?  Alexandria has been destroyed and Oceanside abandoned. The Kingdom still stands - without a queen. The Hilltop flourishes, and Carol is its Mayor. Civilization is pressing on.





	1. Chapter 1

Carol pushes the toe of her boot against the rough planks of the deck and sets the creaky porch swing swaying. Across the way, twenty children spill out of the schoolhouse, scatter into the dirt road, and begin playing kickball. Hershel takes the pitcher's mound. A green and black motorcycle gleams on the porch to Carol's left, where it leans lazily on its iron kickstand as Daryl crouches to polish it. With Eugene's help, he built the bike to run on a rechargeable solar-powered battery. He slides the white cloth over the rear fender as if he's caressing a woman's thigh.

"The way you look at that thing," Carol says, "I'm about to be jealous of a  _machine_."

"Yeah?" He sits down on the planks and rests with his back against the wall of the cabin and his arms on his drawn-up knees. "Well think how I felt when I found that vibrator in your dresser drawer when I helped you move out the Kingdom."

"That was from  _before_ ," Carol insists.

"'Fore what?"

"Before you cornered me that morning I was supposed to marry Ezekiel." With his hand flat against the closed door of her dressing room, where he'd pinned her so he could  _say some shit_  he  _just had to get off his chest_ , Daryl told her that Ezekiel was a good man, and he wanted her to be happy. More than anything in the world, he wanted her to be happy, but  _ain't_   _no fuckin' chemistry there, and you goddamn know it_. "That was pre-Daryl."

Daryl twists the white cloth in a knot around his left hand. "But not pre-'Zekiel?"

Carol shrugs.

Daryl unwinds the cloth from his hand and winds it back again as he talks. "Merle always told me: once you go black, you never go back. Unless you let Merle take you for a whirl. Then you're ruined for life from bein' anyone's wife."

Carol snorts. "I had no idea he was a poet."

"Mhmhm. Wrote lots of poems. Knew how to rhyme, but his meter was shit."

"Tell me another one."

"Nah. Too dirty for an innocent lady like you."

Carol snorts. "Well, just so you know, I threw that vibrator away before I ever moved here. I don't need it anymore."

"Kind of wish you hadn't," he mumbles.

She shoots him a puzzled look. "Why?"

He ducks his head, dips the cloth in his can of polish, and scoots forward to rub it over the frame of his bike.

" _Why_?" she asks again.

"Would of liked to watch...maybe," he admits in a mutter.

Carol's eyes widen. "Really?" They've been together for a few years now, and Daryl's always been pretty conservative about sex, but maybe that's just been out of respect for her, because of what she went through with Ed. "You've never asked for anything like that."

Daryl reddens. Carol prepares to tease him, but she sees Jesus and Aaron strolling toward their cabin. Jesus pauses to kick the out-of-bounds ball back on the field.

The two men mount the three porch stairs, and Jesus leans back against the rail, his hands down behind himself. Aaron holds a set of rolled up blueprints.

"Construction should be completed on the dormitory tomorrow," Aaron says. "We'll be able to properly house the last of the refugees and get them out of the common rooms."

Hilltop has already assimilated its half of the Alexandrian refugees, but now Oceanside has abandoned its camp and divided its people between the Kingdom and the Hilltop. Fire destroyed Alexandria during the War with the Whisperers two years ago, but storm battered Oceanside more recently. Both groups thought it less costly to move than to rebuild. Besides, there is strength in numbers, and this way they only need to secure one trade route – between the Hilltop and the Kingdom.

"Good work," Carol assures him. Being Mayor of Hilltop might not be as prestigious as being  _Queen_  of the  _Kingdom_ , but she finds it's more her style. She just wishes Maggie had lived to see the thriving town this once rustic colony has become, but she died in the War with Whisperers.

"Have you decided who you're appointing for your Deputy Director of Forestry yet?" Jesus asks Daryl.

"Ya mean who's gonna help me be in charge of the hunters 'n fishermen?"

"You're going to have to get used to the bureaucratic names, Daryl," Carol tells him. "The Council likes them." She looks teasingly at Aaron. "Especially the Chairman."

"Nothing wrong with a little structure and formality," Aaron insists.

"Ain't never needed no fancy title," Daryl insists, "and I don't need no deputy. Ain't no one starved."

"We're  _growing_ ," Jesus reminds him. "We took in forty-eight people from Oceanside. Two babies were born this year. And only  _one_  person died. You should lighten your load and appoint a deputy to help you."

"Fine. Wanna appoint Henry," Daryl says.

"Uh…" Aaron exchanges a glance with Jesus. "I think that might technically violate the nepotism prohibition."

"Why?" Daryl grunts.

"Because he's Carol's adopted son," Aaron explains. "And you're Carol's…" He trails off and looks questioningly at Jesus.

"Husband?" Jesus ventures.

"Husband," Aaron agrees.

"Did we just get married, Pookie?" Carol asks.

"Reckon maybe we did," Daryl replies.

Carol smirks. "Well it's about time you made an honest woman out of me."

Aaron scratches his neck with the rolled-up blue prints. "Isn't Henry a bit young for a deputy director's position?"

"Nah," Daryl says. "'S nineteen."

"He  _just_  turned nineteen," Carol clarifies.

"'S a man," Daryl tells her. "Whether you want 'em to be or not."

"Do you have anybody else at all in mind?" Jesus asks Daryl. "I just think it would look better if you didn't appoint a member of your own household."

"Cyndie, maybe. Mean…hell…she's already taken over the fishin' since she got here. "

"Good," Aaron says. "Officially put her name in before the Council, and we'll confirm" her."

"A'ight." Daryl puts down his cloth and picks up a wrench to tighten a bolt. "'M  _officially_  puttin' her name in 'fore the Council."

"You have to do the paperwork, Daryl," Aaron tells him.

"A'ight. I'll have my personal secretary get that right to ya."

"I am  _not_  doing your  _paperwork_ ," Carol assures him. "It's  _one_  letter, Daryl. Two sentences and a signature. I think you can manage."

[*]

Carol sits at the rolltop desk she took from the mansion and put in a corner of their cabin and reads the day's pony express correspondence from the Kingdom while Daryl tucks Hershey into bed. Only Daryl doesn't call it  _tucking in_. Hershey insists that he is much too old for tuck-ins, so it's a  _pow-wow_. A pow-wow that might happen to involve Daryl reading Maggie's orphaned son a chapter or two from  _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_.

Henry, who is taller than Daryl now, and almost as muscular, comes through the front door, leans his staff against the side of the door, and hangs his bow on the cabin wall. He stomps his boots on the inside mat before yanking them off.

"You missed dinner," Carol tells him.

"I ate on the hunt." That's all she gets out of him before he disappears into his bedroom and shuts the door. He used to talk to her all the time, about  _everything_ , but now she's lucky if she can get fifty words out of him in a day.

[*]

Carol has just finished signing her name to an official piece of correspondence to the Kingdom when she senses Daryl standing behind her. He puts one calloused hand on each of her shoulders and leans down to kiss her neck. She stretches it to give him access. He kisses her ear next, and murmurs, "Turnin' in. Ya comin'?"

"I'll be in in a little while. I just have a few more things to do." She turns in her chair to face him, and he steps back. "Did you know Henry was going to eat with the hunters again today?"

Daryl sighs. "Carol, 's time for 'em to move out. Ya know he wants to. Let 'em move into one of them dorm rooms."

"He's  _nineteen_."

"I's sixteen when I left home, 'n I didn't even grow up in an apocalypse."

"It doesn't make any sense for him to move out when we have a housing shortage already and he has a bedroom here."

"Could bring in one of the refugees, maybe," he suggests. "Let 'em have that bedroom." He smirks. "Samantha, maybe."

Carol narrows her eyes at him. "The thirty-five-year-old blonde with the big tits? No thank you."

He chuckles, and she frowns sternly. "Seriously though," he says. "'S that elderly couple from Oceanside."

" _Elderly_  couple?"

"Yeah, the ones they found livin' in that church last year. Could give 'em Henry's old room when he moves out."

"Daryl, they're only in their early sixties." And Carol will turn fifty-six soon. Does that make  _her_  elderly?

Daryl's brow crinkles. "Thought they was like eighty."

"Well, they haven't stayed as fit as we have, I guess."

"Mhmh. Guess. Ya look just like ya did when I first met ya. Better."

Carol smiles.

 

[*]

A cool, early fall breeze drifts through the open bedroom window, and the flames of the candles flicker. White wax drips onto the black iron of the candelabra that rests on the rustic oak nightstand.

Daryl closes the shutters while Carol turns down the quilt. She's wearing only a long T-shirt and her underwear, while Daryl still has on his worn wranglers and white, sleeveless undershirt.

"Everyone is settling," she says.

"Ain't the worse thing." Daryl pulls off his shirt and tosses it across the room. It lands half in the wicker hamper, half out. "Hell, ya settled for me. Didn't turn out so bad, did it?"

"Stop," Carol tells him. "I meant settling down. And I did  _not_  settle for you. I married up."

"Pffft."

Carol slides on top of the sheets and pats the empty spot on the bed next to her. He lies on his side, kisses her, and rests a hand on the tail of her shirt. He smiles and tugs on it, and she helps him to ease it over her head. The candles flicker gently, casting patterns on her bare flesh, and he traces the shadowy light over her stomach and up to her breasts, which he plays with lazily.

Carol murmurs beneath his touch and feels the heat grow between her legs. She puts a hand over his and moves it away, but then she touches her own breast. "I don't have a vibrator anymore," she tells him, "but do you still want to watch?"

"Ya serious?"

She bites her bottom lip shyly and nods.

He smiles, rolls off the bed, and stands to watch as she stretches herself out sideways over the bed. His breath deepens as she explores her own breasts. She closes her eyes, too embarrassed to watch him watching her. She doesn't open them even when she feels her panties being slid down her legs, or when he takes one of her hands, suckles each of her fingers, and presses them against her thigh. "Go on now, darlin'. Play."

Carol lets her legs fall open and does what he asks. She can almost feel the heat of his gaze, though she keeps her eyes shut tightly. Eventually, Daryl's belt buckle clangs and his zipper rasps down.

Carol stills. "Keep goin'," he tells her, "touch yerself, Beautiful," and she does.

He doesn't quite let her finish, though. When she's almost there, he moves her hand away and pushes into her with a low groan. Crying his name, Carol climaxes on his first stroke, but he brings her to the peak a second time before he's spent.

Afterward, they lay in bed under the quilt, limbs tangled, breaths gradually slowing to a normal rate. "Thank you," he murmurs.

"Can I let you in on a little secret?" She lays her head on his chest. "I like having sex with you as much as you like having it with me."

"Ain't possible." Daryl kisses the top of her head, rolls on his side, and soon surrenders to sleep.

[*]

Carol walks into the Mayor's Office and Council Chambers – which is in the old study of the historic mansion – and shuts the door behind herself. "Sorry I'm late. Hershey had a slight fever this morning, and I had to go to the clinic to get him something." Daryl and Henry had already taken off hunting before she and little Hershel were even awake.

"There's a bit of that going around," Enid says from where she sits around the circular council table that stands on the oriental rug where a coffee table once rested. At only 24, she's the youngest member of the Town Council. "We had two kids in the clinic last night with fevers. But they broke within a few hours. Did Siddiq give you something?"

"Yes," Carol replies as she walks across the wood floor. Sunlight streams through the open curtains of the window and casts dusty beams of light on the bookcases and great oak desk where Carol spends most mornings dealing with the business of the day before going out into the field. It's been a little strange, going from warrior to politician, but she finally feels settled in her role. "And Barbara's watching him now."

Aaron glances at Jesus. "Did you check if Gracie had a fever this morning before you dropped her at school?"

"Why would I check that?" Jesus asks. "It's not exactly part of the morning routine. She looked as fine as usual."

Carol takes her seat at the table, between Tara and Eugene. She nods to Aaron. "Why don't you start us off, Chairman?" This part of her day is easy. Aaron mostly runs the Council, and her role is primarily to observe and offer the occasional opinion. She doesn't even get to vote. With five council members, there are never any ties to break.

Aaron flings open the manila folder before him. "So the first order of business is to confirm the remaining deputy director appointments. Siddiq put in Enid for the Deputy Directory of Health Services."

"Is that allowed?" Tara asks. "Can a council member also be in the cabinet?"

Everyone looks to Eugene, because he has the Hilltop town charter memorized line for line. "This matter is presently unaddressed," Eugene replies. "But there is no explicit prohibition. And I am of the opinion that we may find ourselves with a dearth of suitable talents to fill the ever-expanding number of positions if we do not allow for the aforementioned overlap."

"In other words, yes?" Tara asks.

Eugene nods and Aaron asks, "All in favor of confirming Enid?"

"I can't vote for myself, can I?" Enid asks.

"I think Carol will have to vote in this case," Aaron replies.

Carol raises her hand. Aaron, Jesus, Eugene, and Tara follow.

Now Aaron holds up a sheet of paper that has scrawled on it the words:  _I want Cindy – Daryl Dixon_

Tara snorts when she sees the  _official document_.

"And Daryl has appointed Cyndie Santos to be Deputy Director of Forestry," Aaron says. "Although, Carol, you're going to have to get him to write the position for which he's appointing her on here. And her full name. Correctly spelled."

"Aaron, it's a miracle he turned in that much." Carol was fully expecting to show up this morning and find Daryl had forgotten to make the appointment. Again.

Aaron sighs. "Fine. All in favor of confirming the appointment?"

Five hands go up.

Aaron takes out another sheet of paper. "And Rosita is appointing Beatrice as the Deputy Director of Defense."

"That would be the  _fourth_  appointment from Oceanside," Enid says. "Yesterday we confirmed an Oceanside man for Deputy Director of the Interior  _and_ an Oceanside woman for Deputy Director of Supply Acquisition and Storage."

"Well, that might not be a bad thing," Jesus says. "We need to assimilate the Oceanside refugees, and what better way to do it than to make them feel like they have a role in this town?"

Enid shrugs but nods. "Fair enough."

"All in favor?"

Five hands go up.

[*]

Carol has put Hershey to bed early because, although his fever broke in the early afternoon and has not returned, he's still feeling a bit lethargic. She now sits at her roll top desk reviewing the citizen suggestions and complaints that have mounted in a pile of papers in her inbox. Daryl and Henry weren't home for dinner, and still aren't back from the hunt. That could mean one of three things: the hunt was bad, and they stayed out longer to salvage something; the hunt was great, and they're still cleaning up after helping to butcher the plentiful kill; or something terrible happened.

Carol tells the worried voice in the back of her head, which insists on option three, to shut the hell up. But as she tries to read, it keeps whispering nervously to her –  _they should be home by now._

Finally, the front door creaks open. Carol turns in her chair to watch her men come inside, hang up their weapons, beat their boots, and shed their outer garments. "Good or bad?" she asks.

"Good," Daryl grunts. "Two doe  _and_  a wild pig."

"I tracked that pig," Henry says proudly. "The entire way. By  _myself_."

Daryl goes to warm his hands by the quietly crackling fire. The temperature tends to drop a good ten degrees at night, and it looks like they've been out without gloves.

Henry comes to stand beside Daryl, stretches out his hands palms up before the flames, and says "As matter of fact, next to Daryl, I catch the most game of all the hunters, and that's been true for two years now. Kind of makes me wonder why he appointed some woman who's only been here six months to be Deputy Director of Forestry."

Daryl looks up from the fire and peers at Henry as though he's looking at him through a set of shaggy bangs, even though his hair is shorter now – almost as short as it was when Carol first met him. He finally cut it last year when it started graying quickly, because it looks lighter when it's short, dirty blonde more than brown-and-gray. Carol was shocked by the uncharacteristic act of vanity, but she likes the haircut. He  _claims_  that's not why he did it, but nothing else explains it to her, after years of stubbornly refusing more than the smallest trim. When he first cut it, he looked suddenly seven years younger. If he shaved his graying goatee, he'd probably look seventeen years younger, and she'd feel like a cradle robber. Fortunately, he'd never consider doing that.

"Now that's some passive aggressive bullshit right there," Daryl replies. "If ya gotta a problem with me, have some balls 'n say it right out."

"I've got a problem with you not appointing me," Henry says. "I think I've earned the position."

"Aaron said I couldn't. Nepotism or some shit."

"How is it nepotism for  _you_  to appoint  _me_ , but it's  _not_  nepotism for  _Carol_  to appoint  _you_?"

" _I_  don't appoint the cabinet," Carol tells him. "The Council does that." As Mayor, she has a lot of responsibility, and a lot of influence, but not a great deal of  _direct_  power. "Didn't you study the town charter like I told you to?"

The children study the charter as part of the Hilltop's school curriculum, but school only goes until the age of thirteen, when apprenticeships begin. Henry was done with his formal schooling before the charter was formally adopted.

"Yeah, sure, I read it," he says. "Maybe I'll run for a Council position next year."

"You can't," Carol tells him. "Not for two more years. The minimum age for Councilmen is 21, which you would  _know_  if you'd studied the charter like I asked you to."

Henry draws in his hands and walks away from the fire. "Sorry I'm too damn busy keeping this whole town supplied with wild game to memorize a charter that's always being amended anyway."

"Hey!" Daryl barks. "Don't you  _dare_  talk to yer mamma like that!"

"Sorry," Henry mutters. "Sorry, Carol. It's been a long day. I'm just going to head to bed." He walks to where she sits, looming tall over her, puts a hand on her shoulder, and kisses the top of her head. "Nite."

And then he's gone.

Daryl pokes the fire. "Kid needs to move out."

"Then he'll  _never_  talk to me," Carol laments.

"Be surprised. Might talk to ya more, when he thinks ya see 'em as more of an equal. Needs his space, Carol."

There's a cry from little Hershey's room. Carol starts to rise, but Daryl sets the poker back on its stand and says, "I got 'em. Ya get yer work done. Otherwise yer gonna be up all damn night."


	2. Chapter 2

Carol leans in the partly open doorway of Hershey's room. Daryl is crammed into the twin size bed with the boy. With one hand, he holds open a book that rests upright on his stomach, just above his belt buckle. A golden halo glows above the oil lamp on the nightstand.  She leans her head against the wooden frame of the door and listens to Daryl read  _Huckleberry Finn_. She loves the deep, smoky sound of his voice.

Daryl pauses suddenly in his reading. "Ya ain't s'pose to say that word, just so ya know."

"Why not?" Hershey asks.

"'S rude."

"Then why is Huck using it?"

"'S how people used to talk 'bout black folk. Some people anyhow. Ain't no more. 'S rude."

"But they're friends, Jim and Huck? Right?"

"Yeah. But Huck don't know no better."

Before Daryl can start reading again, the little boy asks, "Did your daddy read you this book when you were a boy?"

"Nah, my daddy didn't read me no books. We didn't  _have_  no books. 'Cept car repair manuals."

" _You_  had a  _car_?"

Daryl chuckles. "Everyone had cars."

"Oh. I thought only rich people had cars."

"Nah. When I's a kid, we had like...four or five."

"Five! I thought you said you were poor!"

"My daddy'd get 'em from the junkyard, fix 'em up. Couple of 'em never did run. Just sat there in the front yard on blocks. Great for hide n' seek though. 'Til I got locked in the trunk for six hours. My brother Merle finally got tired of me screamin' 'n let me out. Don't crawl in the trunk of a car now."

"I'm not  _stupid_."

"Yeah, well, I wasn't neither. But sometimes a boy gets a notion to do somethin' and don't think it all the way through."

Hershey turns the page. "So did you ever read this book before?"

"Yeah. Had to. In 8th grade. 'S a classic."

"What's a classic?" Hershey asks.

"'S somethin' old that's good enough to stand the test of time, so 's still 'round years later."

"So…like you? Are you a classic?"

In the doorway, Carol smiles and slips quietly away as Daryl snorts and says, "Yeah, kid. 'M a classic."

[*]

When Daryl comes out of Hershey's room, Carol's back at the roll top desk, pouring over some more paper. "Still at it?" he asks.

She turns sideways in the chair to face him. "How is he?"

"Fine. Just had a bad dream 'n wanted stories. Fever ain't back or nothin'."

"Good. But him getting sick reminds me…the Director of Supply Acquisition says we're almost out of penicillin. We need to send someone to trade with the Kingdom."

"A'ight, I'll go."

"I wasn't asking  _you_  to go."

"Don't mind."

"I was actually thinking of going myself," Carol says. "It's been six months since I left Hilltop."

"Nah. Yer mayor. Gotta stay."

"The mayor is  _not_  indispensable," she reasons. "The Council can handle my duties for a couple of days."

"Nah. I need to get out on the road for a bit anyhow. Wanna take my new bike for a spin."

"You've taken it for three spins."

"A  _longer_  spin."

Carol gives him a skeptical look. "I think you just don't want me seeing my ex-fiance."

"I don't think yer ex-fiance wants to see  _you_."

"We parted on good terms," Carol assures him. "I mean…after the initial embarrassment."

The  _initial embarrassment_  involved Ezekiel – tradition be damned – coming to Carol's dressing room to see what was taking her so long. He found her with her arms wrapped around Daryl's neck and her lips pressed to his lips.

Ezekiel ripped Daryl off of Carol and landed a solid punch straight in his face, to which Daryl did not respond. That was followed by a second punch, but when it was clear Daryl  _still_  was not going to respond, Ezekiel didn't throw a third. Instead, he began pacing the dressing room, and then finally came to an abrupt stop before Carol. Whirling on her, he said,  _You could have simply told me no._ There was hurt in the king's eyes. And anger. But not, interestingly enough, surprise.

"We get along very well whenever we run into each other," Carol insists.

Daryl scoffs. "Yeah, 'cause he's a goddamn gentleman who knows how to put on a show. But don't think 's easy for 'em to see ya."

"It's been  _years_ , Daryl. Ezekiel moved on  _long_  ago."

"He ain't married no one," Daryl reminds her. "Ain't got no queen."

"But he's had his dalliances. He's not you, Pookie. Wooing me was almost like a game of chess to him. Don't think that just because it would be hard for you to move on, it's been hard for him, too."

"Ya got a heart as cold as stone, woman."

Carol laughs. She stands, laces her fingers through his, and tugs. "Come on. Let's go to bed. You can warm up my cold heart."

[*]

Teasing aside, Carol's not interested in sex tonight. She seldom is two nights in a row. Daryl knows that, but he makes the attempt anyway, and she feel a little guilty deflecting him. But he says what he always says when she turns him down – "A'ight. Love ya," and then he kisses her on her forehead.

He doesn't say he loves her often, but oddly enough, he says it every time she turns him down for sex. She appreciates the reassurance, because she used to be afraid to turn Ed down for sex, so much so, that she eventually stopped doing it.

Daryl murmurs goodnight and rolls on his side, his back to her. This is one of his peculiarities that she's just come to accept – unless he drifts off immediately after sex, he can't fall asleep while being touched. But she's learned how to manage the situation to get what she needs while still giving him what he needs. "Would you cuddle with me for a few minutes before you go to sleep?"

He flops over again. "Mhmhm. Sure." She rolls on her side and spoons back against him, nestling herself into the warmth of his firm body and enjoying the weight of his arm slung familiarly around her. 

"You can go this one time," she says.

"Go where?"

"To make the trade. But  _next_  time there's an opportunity to get out on a supply run or a scouting expedition to a trade,  _I'm_  going. No arguments. I can't stay pent up here for an entire  _year_."

"A'ight."

Carol closes her eyes. "Just a few minutes of cuddling," she murmurs. "Then you can have your space." She doesn't know when he takes that space, because she's asleep in sixty seconds.

[*]

Daryl's gone from the bed when Carol awakens, and the bedroom door is slightly ajar. There's a murmur of voices coming from the living room. Carol rolls out of bed and instinctively begins making it up. She's tucking the quilt under the pillows when Daryl comes in, a backpack slung over his left shoulder. He leaves the bedroom door open, opens the small closet, and plucks down one of the three crossbows on the shelf.

"What's wrong with your usual one?" she asks.

"String broke. Ain't got time to fix it."

He scavenged six crossbows from Cabela's four years ago. The place had been looted of all food, guns, ammo, and propane, but they still found plenty of things to take. 

Carol turns to face him. "Be safe."

"Stay safe." He leans in for a kiss.

From the living room, Henry calls, "Daryl! Time to get moving!"

"You're taking Henry?" Carol asks.

"Council says it's safer to travel in twos."

"As if  _you've_  ever cared about the recommendations of the Council. And doesn't he need to stay to hunt if you're going to be gone?"

"Ain't gonna be gone long. Two days. Got other hunters. Smokehouse is almost full anyhow."

Carol leans closer and whispers, "He's going there so he can see Jessica, isn't he?"

Daryl shouts through the open door, "Saddle yer horse! Meet me by the gate."

"Can't I just take your old motorcycle?" Henry hollers back. "Now that you have the new one?"

"Nah! Don't have 'nuff ethanol refined."

"You've got three gallons in the shed!"

"Council's raitonin' it."

"Fine," Henry mutters. Footsteps disappear toward the cabin's front door, which opens and closes. Carol hopes all the shouting through the cabin doesn't wake Hershey, who could probably use another rest day before returning to school.

"He is, isn't he?" Carol asks. "Going to see that woman?"

"Henry's 19 now, Carol. 'S a grown man. Ya can't control who he fucks."

"She's  _much_  too old for him," Carol complains. "She's old enough to be his  _mother."_

"Yeah," Daryl says drolly. "If she had Henry when she was  _ten_."

"I wish you'd talk to him, Pookie. He only seems interested in dipping his wick."

"'S that  _really_  the metaphor yer gonna go with?"

" _Please_  would you just talk to him?"

"'Bout what? Ain't my business."

Carol sighs. "I just always thought he'd turn out to be more…honorable."

"Ain't bein' dishonorable. 'S just takin' what's on offer."

"Is that what  _you'd_  do?" she asks peevishly.

"If I was 19? Hell yeah! Look, he'll screw 'round with her for another couple months, get it out of his system, get his tutorin' from 'er, 'n move on to someone closer to his own age."

"You are far too casual about this for my tastes. What if he gets her pregnant?"

"Then yer gonna make a gorgeous grandmama," he assures her with a smirk. Daryl kisses her frowning lips, chuckles, and heads out the bedroom door.

[*]

The first two times Daryl took out his solar-powered bike, he  _hated_  it. He hated the quiet, the electric whir. He missed the manly roar of his ethanol-powered motorcycle and the raw smell of the fumes. But now, he  _loves_  it. He loves that the natural sound of the wind in his ears, the fact that he can hear so much more around him.

He's two miles ahead of Henry on the largely straight highway, so he stops to circle back and meet up with Henry's cantering horse. Daryl makes a U-turn around the stoic animal, which is as unperturbed by the bike as it is by the walker that is now lumbering toward them from out of the wood a quarter of a mile up the highway.

Daryl zooms closer to the walker. With the flick of his wrist, he flings his knife through the air, and it lodges in the creature's forehead. Daryl looks over his shoulder and watches the monster slump down on the gravely shoulder. He grips both handlebars again, leans his bike, and circles around to the left to come back and reclaim the weapon, but Henry has already stopped, dismounted, and is pulling it out.

Henry hands him the knife, insisting, "I could have handled that."

Daryl sits casually, holding up his bike with one booted heel against the sun-grayed asphalt of the highway, and cleans his knife with a handkerchief. "Relax. Just takin' care of business. Ain't challengin' yer manhood." Daryl slides the knife back into its sheath. "Speakin' of which – don't knock up Jessica."

Henry flushes. He looks like as if he's going to deny that he's been fooling around with her, but he doesn't. Instead, he says, "I've got it under control."

"Carol wants ya to date someone yer own age."

" _Who_?"

Daryl thinks of that Ocenasider who's very near Henry's age. "Rachel!"

"Forgive my French," says Henry, using a phrase he picked up from Carol, "but Rachel is a stuck-up bitch." And that's a phrase he picked up from Daryl.

"Mhmm….Yeah," Daryl agrees. He can't argue with that. "Dunno. Enid maybe?" Enid's only five years older. Carol would probably be comfortable with that spread.

"She's with that guy who used to be a Savior."

Daryl peers at him with narrowed eyes. " _What_  Savior?"

"Alden," says Henry, as though it ought to be obvious enough.

" _Alden_?"

"Yeah, Alden. I've seen them around. Laughing. Smiling at each other. Kissing. And I think he's thirty-seven. So if you're going to lecture someone on age differences, it ought to be her."

" _Alden_?" Daryl never liked that baby-faced Savior. At least Alden was on  _their_  side from early on, but Daryl always felt like he was just a little too conciliatory. Maybe Daryl would have developed more respect for him if he wasn't such a namby pamby. At least when Rick was trying to make peace, he was a  _man_  about it. Alden was what you'd get if you took Rick and chopped off his balls and gave him even worse aim.

"They're both adults," Henry says. "She's twenty-four, and a competent doctor, not to mention a Councilwoman. And guess what? I'm an adult, too. I'm done with my schooling, I work full-time, and when you retire, old man, guess who's going to be Director of Forestry?"

"Listen, kid," Daryl mutters, "I don't give a shit 'bout the age difference. Just passin' on Carol's message. But I'll tell ya this – knock that woman up and yer stuck. Everyone's gonna 'spect ya to marry 'er. 'S the way it works in this world."

"What makes you so sure I don't  _want_  to get stuck with Jessica, anyway?" Henry shakes his head and paces back to his horse, which he mounts with irritation. He kicks its side, shouts, "Hi-yah!" and takes off galloping down the highway.

[*]

"Is this really necessary?" Carol asks Aaron as he hands her a large pair of sewing scissors.

"Ceremony is important. It gives people a feeling of being rooted to their community."

Carol turns to face the crowd of Oceanside refugees that is gathered outside the newly built dormitory. "It is my privilege as your Mayor," she says, "to dedicate this newest building to the honor of those Oceanside residents who were lost in the hurricane that battered your shores. This plaque –" She points to a hand carved wooden plaque by the front door, "bears their names, and in our hearts, we bear their memories." She turns and cuts the red ribbon that Aaron has taped from frame to frame across the front door, and there's clapping from the spectators.

Carol swings open the front door and turns to the crowd again. "Six months ago, we welcomed you through the gates of this town. Today, we welcome you to your new home, knowing that you will repay our generosity with your hard work and loyalty, as equal citizens of Hilltop."

She steps aside, hands Aaron the scissors, and watches the Oceanside refugees filter inside.

"One of the Oceanside women decided to move into Tara's trailer with her," Aaron says, "so there's an extra room in the dorm, if we need it."

Carol's pretty sure Henry's going to want to take it. He'll move out of their cabin and leave an empty room, not to mention an empty hole in her heart. Time is pressing on, faster than she ever imagined it would.

"How's Hershey?" Aaron asks.

"No fever," Carol answers as she begins to walk with him away from the dorm. "But I'm holding him home from school for one more day to rest. Barbara's checking in on him while I'm at work. How's Gracie?"

"She's got it now. Jesus is home with her. Glad to know it's a short-term thing."

Carol thinks of the sickness that spread through the prison in Georgia, and she's thankful that they're far more equipped to deal with such issues now.

[*]

Henry and Daryl stop in a neighborhood of dilapidated country houses to scavenge. Henry wants to kick in some doors, and Daryl can't blame him. Daryl kicked in a couple of doors when he was nineteen, and he didn't even have the excuse of an apocalypse. Once, his cousin Billy owed him twenty bucks and had hauled up in his cabin and locked the door and wouldn't let Daryl in or hand it over. And once, when Daryl got home from a night shift, Merle was tripping something awful in the trailer they shared, and Daryl could hear him screaming weird shit inside, but he couldn't find his key. It turned out, after he busted the hinges clean off, that the door had been unlocked all along.

Henry flies into the air with a spiral kick and contacts the wood with his foot in such a way that that it looks like he's barely tapping it – and yet it splinters. Daryl doesn't know how he does it. He half wishes he could do that kung fu shit, but he would feel like an ass twirling around. Knives and arrows are good enough for him, thank you very much.

Dust, mold, and cobwebs assault their throats as they cough their way from house to house. Rats, having made nests in the furniture, scurry across floors. They don't have much luck until the fourth house. The walker that lunges at them when they turn the hallway from the foyer is still very much alive. Henry whacks it hard with his staff and sends its already soft head splattering against the chipped yellowing paint of the hallway wall.

"He must have turned in the last year," Henry says. "He didn't look  _that_  rotten."

"Which means this house might still have some good shit," Daryl reasons. "If he survived here 'til recent."

Daryl steps over the carcass of the walker and sweeps the kitchen with his crossbow, but finds it empty. In the pantry they discover an unopen canister of salt, which Daryl takes for Carol, flour infested with weevils, sugar littered with the carcasses of dead ants, and six unopened bottles. "Coke!" Daryl exclaims.

"That's Orange Crush."

"Maybe where  _yer_ from," Daryl says as he snags one of the bottles, butterflies open his pocket knife, and uses the curve in the hilt to flick the cap off.

"That's got to be at least nine years past its sell by date," Henry warns.

"At the worst it's flat," Daryl reasons. He puts the rim to his mouth, throws back, and then spews the liquid out onto the yellow linoleum floor of the kitchen. He coughs as Henry laughs. Daryl wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, sets the open bottle on the kitchen table, and says, "Let's just take the salt."

They search the cupboards next. "Oh yeah!" Henry draws out a half-finished bottle of Tequila. "Is this like that schnapps you let me try?"

"Nothin' like. That shit will fuck you up."

Henry grins and unscrews the cap.

" _One_  swig," Daryl insists. "'N don't tell Carol I encouraged ya."

Henry throws back his head the same way Daryl did a moment ago. He chokes and gurgles and lowers the bottle abruptly as the Tequila spills out of the corners of his mouth and runs down into his patchy, dirty blonde goatee. He's been trying to grow a full beard, but isn't quite old enough to accomplish it.

Now it's Daryl's turn to laugh. "Ain't like schnapps, is it?"

Henry gasps, pounds his chest, and says, "I think it's poisoned! It burns!"

Daryl laughs harder.

"I'm serious!" Henry pounds his chest again.

"Ain't no damn poison! 'S just 80 proof. Gave yerself a little heartburn, 's all."

"That's what  _heartburn_ is?"

"Wait 'til yer  _my_  age," Daryl mutters. "Every dam thing'll give ya heartburn. Ya just learn to live with it." He slaps Henry on the back and snags the bottle from him. He takes a swig, screws back on the cap, puts the bottle in his pack, and then continues searching the kitchen.

"I need to wash that taste out." Henry takes a drink from the flat Orange Crush Daryl couldn't finish. He actually manages to drink the bottle empty. Then he says, "Watch this." He throws the bottle into the air, twirls, and smashes it with his staff.

Daryl ducks as shattered glass rains down onto the counter and on his own head. He bends his neck and shakes his head to get most of the shards out his hair. Then he runs his hand over the top of his head to brush out the last few pieces and ends up with a sliver stuck in his palm. He winces and pulls it out.

"Sorry," Henry says. "I didn't really think that one through."

"No shit," Daryl agrees, but he throws Henry a bone anyway – "'S kind of cool."

In the living room, Daryl goes through the collection of DVDs and snags a few titles he thinks the kids might like for weekly movie night. In Hilltop, they generate a limited amount of power via windmill and solar bay, so power usage is fairly strictly rationed and limited to certain areas of the town, such as the clinic and the communal kitchens, as well as the bathhouses, where it's used for heating water in a central tank. But once a month, they allow the kids to pile into the mansion's expansive foyer. The kids drag along pillows to sit atop and watch a film on a TV/DVD-player combo that is rolled in on a cart and plugged into a portable power pack.

The kids love it, but most of them have no idea what they're seeing. Movies set in the ordinary, pre-apocalyptic world are as magical and foreign to them as the world of  _Harry Potter_. "What's that thing? What's that thing?" is the constant chorus rising from the cross-legged children as they sit before the glowing TV and watch people answering phones, flying in planes, and ringing up their purchases on cash registers instead of bartering at trading posts.

By the time Daryl's in the next room, Henry has picked up a comic book and is flipping through the pages. Daryl's gut ties into a sudden knot, and for a moment he has no idea why. Then he realizes that his body – even before his mind – is thinking of all the comic books Michonne used to find and bring back for Carl while they were tracking the Governor. And that in turn reminds him of the prison, which reminds him of Glenn and Maggie, of Herhsel and Beth and Rick, of loss upon loss upon loss.

Grief still strikes him like that, more often than he thinks it should. The most mundane things can trigger that tangling in his gut. He grits his teeth and walks out of the room. He goes out the front of the house, hoping to find a walker so he can untangle this feeling in his gut with the thrust of a blade.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Carol finds her Director of Defense sitting in the chair on the other side of her desk in the Council Chambers.  Rosita turns at Carol's footsteps and raises her glass of bourbon. "Sorry. I helped myself. But you're late."

Carol never drinks the bourbon herself, but she likes the way it looks there in its crystal bottle, next to two down turned glasses, and sometimes her directors drink it. "II'm one minute early."

"Abraham always used to say that ten minutes early is late."

Carol sits down at the desk across from her and drops her files in a haphazard stack. "Should you be drinking that? Aren't you still breast feeding?"

"I'm down to a few times a day now that he's eating lots of solids," Rosita replies. "And I wouldn't mind it if a little bourbon got in my milk. Maybe it would put Gene to sleep. He's already given up  _both_  naps."

Eugene Abraham Espinoza is known to be a handful of a toddler, a handful Rosita often leaves in the hands of Eugene. Everyone knows little Gene is not  _really_  Eugene's son, including Eugene himself, but he pretends he doesn't. Whoever the father was has been gone for a little over two years now, lost in the War with the Whisperers.

"So what's the report?" Carol asks.

Rosita takes a small sip of the bourbon in her glass, sets it down, and unrolls the maps she's set on the desk. "With the help of the Kingdom's defense forces, my team has finished blowing that last bridge." She points to a spot on the map. "So if that crazy nomad was right about there being heavily armed war lords coming this direction," she runs her finger from just above Chesapeake, Maryland to Virginia, "they'll likely turn around when they hit that bridge and find someone else to exploit. I mean, they  _could_  find a way around, but they probably won't bother, especially not knowing what's here."

The  _crazy nomad_ , as Rosita calls him, lives in the Kingdom now, the fitting place, perhaps, because he's like a peculiar character out of Shakespeare. The Kingdom, Ezekiel tells Carol by letter, has not found a practical use for him, but he seems harmless enough and is accustomed to eating little.

"But even if he's delusional and there are no war lords," Rosita continues, "it still makes sense for us to have blown all those bridges. Now the Kingdom and the Hilltop are practically a self-sustained island." She circles her finger around an area that encompasses D.C. and parts of West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland. "An island with oceans, lakes, streams, mountains, valleys, and farms. Everything we need. We've got a buffer against the rest of the world now that those bridges are blown. Since walkers can't swim, herds beyond those bridges won't be able to cross into our territory either, unless they go a long way around on land. And now we actually  _have_  a defined territory to scout and map."

"And how big is our island?"

"Still pretty damn big. About 400 miles wide at its greatest breadth. About 200 miles long from farthest point to farthest point."

Carol nods. "And how's the mapping and scouting going?"

"I have two teams out at the moment. I'm sending Bertie and Eduardo out next week."

"Maybe I'll come."

Rosita laughs. "It's a two-week mission. The Mayor can't leave for  _two weeks_."

Carol drums her fingers on the desk.

"Restless?" Rosita asks. "I'm going out with the eradicators tomorrow. You can come with us. Do a little walker slaying."

The eradicators are working on ridding the land of walkers within a five-mile radius from the gates of the Hilltop. They go out on walker hunting and killing sprees. Of course, even if they succeed in killing hundreds or even thousands, new ones always migrate nearer, but it _does_ minimize the number of walkers who end up eventually slamming against their town walls or bothering the game in the forests.

Eradicating also gives the twelve- to fifteen-year-old kids necessary practice in killing walkers. It's like driver's ed in the old world: the young teenagers have permits to kill, as long as there's an adult in the front seat. At sixteen, they can go outside the gates on their own. Of course, Henry was killing walkers when he was eleven. But it's a different, more settled world now. Henry is practically a different generation from his peers who are just five years younger than him.

"Count me in," Carol says.

They talk a little more business and then Carol asks how Gene is doing. "Did he get the bug that's going around?"

"No, fortunately, not yet anyway. Although it might quiet him down. He talks a mile a minute, mostly gibberish I can't understand, but I think he's up to ten real words."

"At least he's still talking to you. Henry hardly says a word to me. Daryl thinks he should move out."

"He and Daryl aren't getting along?" Rosita asks.

"They're getting along fine, but Daryl thinks Henry needs the distance from  _me_ , that a man needs to  _strike out on his own_."

"And you don't?"

"It's not like he has a curfew!" Carol insists.

Rosita smirks.

"You're going to side with Daryl on this one, aren't you?"

"Well, all I know is, if Gene doesn't move out of my cabin in sixteen years, I'm going to go  _insane_."

Carol laughs. "Gene or Eugene?"

"Maybe both." Rosita smiles. "Although Eugene's been looking pretty hot since he cut his hair and grew that beard."

_Hot_  and  _Eugene_  are not words that make sense in combination to Carol, but Eugene's been good to Rosita, and he was there for her when she needed someone to be there for her. Carol thinks a lens of gratitude can easily transform the landscape. "The beard is an improvement," she concedes.

[*]

When he's about a mile from the gates of the Kingdom, with Henry cantering a mile behind him, Daryl spies movement in the woods at the side of the road. He putters his motorcycle to a stop and kicks down the stand. The leaves of the trees – which are a vivid tapestry of red, orange, and yellow – are shifting in only one section.

Expecting a walker or two, Daryl dismounts his bike, swings his crossbow off his shoulder, and approaches the tree line. He's about to shoot when he sees the emerging figure is not a walker, but a living  _man_.

He eases his finger off the trigger of his crossbow but keeps it leveled at the suspicious figure – a black man of about his own height, with a shaved head and a thick gray-black stubble lining his cheeks. A handgun rides his right hip. "Hands up!" Daryl orders. "Away from that gun, or I shoot!"

The man smiles, raises his hands, and says, "Daryl, it's just me."

Daryl peers down the sights of his crossbow with furrowed brow. "Zeke?"

Ezekiel lowers his hands. "Indeed, it is I."

Daryl lets the crossbow fall casually to his side and looks the king up and down. "Hell happened to yer hair? 'N yer beard?"

Ezekiel runs a hand over his glistening, bald, scalp. "I shaved."

"Ya look like a man baby."

"You're looking good yourself," Ezekiel replies. "I see Carol's cooking is fattening you up." He pats his stomach. "And that new Hilltop brewery has given you a bit of a beer gut."

"I don't drink," Daryl replies coolly.

"No? Really? Carol doesn't allow it?"

"M' _genes_  don't allow it." Daryl's been drunk three times since the world collapsed – once at the CDC, once with Beth, and once – four years ago - when Carol, who thought she was going through menopause, realized she was three months pregnant only because she had a miscarriage. In none of those cases was he on his best behavior.

Henry catches up with them now and vaults off his horse. "Your highness," he says with a smirk and a half bow of his head.

"Henry!" the king replies joyfully. "It's excellent to see you again so soon." Ezekiel embraces the young man, and they pat each other on the back. "Though I suspect it is not I you come to see."

"Me," Henry says.

"Pardon?" Ezekiel asks him.

" _Me_. It's not  _me_  you come to see. It's the object of the verb."

Daryl smirks a little to see the king corrected for his pompous speech. He's still not convinced Ezekiel doesn't snore fancy, too.

Ezekiel smiles. "I see they have vigorous grammar studies in Hilltop."

"I learned that in the Kingdom," Henry replies. "I only went to school in Hilltop for a year."

Behind Ezekiel the trees rustle again. Daryl's bow flies up into position while Henry swings his staff into a defensive posture.

"Relax," Ezekiel says. "It's just Michonne. She's been organizing security for the water engineers. They're in the process of expanding the irrigation all the way back to the Potomac River so we can keep our reservoirs well filled."

Michonne strolls casually out from among the trees. At least she hasn't hacked off her dreads. She looks the same as ever to Daryl. She smiles when she sees him, and he smiles back. He strides forward to claim his hug, and when he pulls back, he asks, "How ya doin',  _Knight Commander_?"

Daryl's always thought it was a dumbass title, but he suspects Michonne likes it. After Alexandria was destroyed in the War with the Whisperers, Michonne went to live in the Kingdom. Now, she's responsible for the Kingdom's defenses and the continued training of the knights, and, if war ever strikes again, she'll lead them into battle.

Daryl was disappointed Michonne didn't choose to settle at the Hilltop, but he gets it. Unlike both Alexandria and the Hilltop, the Kingdom is a place where Rick rarely set foot. Michonne, Daryl thinks, wanted to start over someplace where every corner wasn't haunted with a memory of him.

Michonne nods to Ezekiel, "What do you think of the King's new look?"

Daryl shrugs.

"One day I tell him our dreads make us look like brother and sister," Michonne says, "and the next day he hacks his all off." Michonne looks over the motorcycle. "Is that  _new_?"

"Yeah. Finished it last month. Runs on solar battery."

"Truly?" Ezekiel asks. "And that's manly enough for you?"

"Gets the job done," Daryl grunts.

"It looks fantastic," Michonne says. "Give me a ride the rest of the way back to the Kingdom?"

Daryl straddles the bike and nods over his shoulder. "Hop on."

"Don't forget about that backgammon match you promised me this evening," Ezekiel tells Michonne as she slides onto the bike behind Daryl.

"I said  _if_  I have time," Michonne replies as she slides on the bike behind Daryl. She gives Daryl a little tap above his hip to let him know she's ready to take off.

Daryl kick starts the bike and shoots off as fast as he can. Behind him, Michonne raises one arm into the air and whoops.

[*]

"Uncle Daryl!" Judith shouts and runs from the school house and into his open arms. He lifts her up in a bear hug and then sets her down on her feet. Michonne, who stands beside Daryl, grins down at her daughter. "How long are you here?" Judith asks.

"Just for the night. But sometime 'fore I go, wanna rematch on that firin' range."

Judith shrugs. "I'm still gonna beat you." The ten-year-old puts her little palm on the butt of a silver revolver, which is too heavy for the thick brown leather belt that stretches around her blue jeans, so that the belt tilts downward slightly.

"A'ight, Annie Oakely. We'll see 'bout that." Daryl reaches out and flicks the brim of Rick's worn deputy hat downward. Judith pushes it up again. "I gotta meet with the king first, though. Got some tradin' to do."

"Well don't try to cheat us."

Daryl  _pffts_.

"I'll be around." Judith assures him and runs off after some other children without saying a word to Michonne.

Michonne watches her disappear. "You're the only one she lets hug her anymore, you know."

"She grow 'nother inch since I's last here?"

"Two. God help me when she's a teenager as tall as me."

Daryl nods toward the school house. "She ain't fightin' goin' to school no more?"

"I told her I'd take her gun away if she skipped again. She's ten going on twenty. But there are things she can still learn. And sometimes, she just needs to be a  _kid_."

R.C. is the last one out of the school house. He spies Daryl and jogs over, a primer tucked beneath his arm and a satchel slung over his shoulder. "Hey, Uncle Daryl," he says. "Did you bring Hershey?"

"Nah. Not this time. 'S gettin' over a fever." 

R.C.'s face falls, and for a moment, he looks just like Rick did when he was disappointed. Daryl's always searched for a resemblance to his old friend in the boy, but R.C. looks more like Michonne. He's only a shade lighter than her, and he has the same sternness about his features, which can be suddenly relaxed by the same bright, white-toothed smile. 

"Damn ya got big since I last saw ya. How old are ya now?"

"Six and  _two months_ ," the boy replies.

"That's the important part," Michonne says with a chuckle. "The two months. He's not just  _six_ , are you, Richard Carl?"

"No, ma'am," he replies. "Where'd Ju-Ju go?"

"I don't know. She ran off with her friends."

That disappointed Rick-face breaks out across the boy's features again. "She never plays with me anymore."

"I'll play with you later," Michonne assures him. "When I'm done with a few things. For now, why don't you go put your stuff down in your bedroom and help Nabila in the garden?"

"Yes, ma'am." R.C. jogs off.

"Hell's with all the ma'ams?" Daryl asks when he's gone.

"They make them yes, sir and yes, ma'am at school. Personally, I love it."

"Ain't never heard Judith yes, ma'am ya."

"Yeah, well…" Michonne chuckles. "You pick your battles." She jerks her head toward the school theater. "Ready to trade?"

Daryl follows her toward the theater. On the way, he sees Henry slipping into Jessica's trailer.

[*]

Father Gabriel is arranging flowers on the altar when Carol comes through the back door of the chapel. "You don't have an altar guild to do that for you?" she asks.

The priest turns and looks out at her through one good and one almost-blind eye. "I don't mind. I have the time."

She walks down the aisle toward him, sits in the front pew, and stretches an arm across the back of it. "I used to arrange flowers for our church." Father Gabriel sits in the pew on the other side of the aisle and faces her. "I stopped going about two years after I got married. Ed thought the church ladies were busy bodies."

"They asked too many questions?"

"Yes," Carol concedes. Father Gabriel knows some things about her abuse past by now. After all, he's a vault that anyone can talk to without fear that the information will ever surface anywhere. "I missed it when I stopped going. Ed never went with me, so it was my respite from him, you know?"

"It's not a respite from Daryl, though, is it?"

"No, no. I wish he'd go with me and Hershey." She sighs. Daryl's excuse is that he has to get in position to hunt early in the morning, but he could take Sundays off. She lets it go, but she would like it if he was in that pew beside her and Hershey. "I wish Henry would, too." Henry stopped going when he was seventeen and started joining Daryl for the early morning hunt. That broke her heart just a little bit, but she didn't see the point of  _forcing_  him to go.

Daryl and Henry do come for Easter and Christmas, because they know it's important to her. And the entire time, Daryl looks uncomfortable, his eyes darting from person to person as he tries to figure out when to stand and sit and what to recite.

"I'm here because I have some news you're not going to like," Carol tells him.

Father Gabriel sighs. "The Council didn't improve the church expansion? I'm not getting my balcony?"

Carol shakes her head. "It's just not a priority right now. We've used up a lot of building materials on the dormitory, and we're going to need to build another smokehouse."

"People are standing in the back."

"Well, the Orthodox used to stand for their entire two-hour services." She glances back. "We could get a few folding chairs in the back."

"They're lining the  _sides_ , too."

"It's a good problem to have," she assures him.

"This chapel was built for a camp, not a  _town_. We're a town, now."

"I don't know what to tell you, Gabe. The Council has ruled. Smokehouses before churches. Physical food before spiritual food. Even the Bible says that."

"It does?" the priest asks.

"James 2:16, I think?"

"I think you're taking that out of context."

Carol offers him a sympathetic pout. "Maybe next year," she says and stands. "If you've managed to maintain the size of your congregation and you still need the extra space."

Father Gabriel stands, too. "Well, I hope I will. But you know the old joke."

"What's that?"

"How did the Episcopal priest get rid of the bats in the belfry?"

"I don't know," Carol says. "How?"

"He just baptized and confirmed them and they never came back."

[*]

Daryl meets with Ezekiel and his advisors in the "throne room," which is the school theater. At least the king's not in that damn ridiculous Richard III chair anymore. Instead, there's a rectangular school table on the stage, with a bunch of brown metal folding chairs lining it.

Ezekiel sits across from Daryl, with Michonne and Jerry on his right and Tyler on his left. Or maybe his name is Taylor. Daryl can't remember. Tyler – or Taylor - is in charge of inventory and supplies and other bureaucratic details.

"Yer askin' too much," Daryl insists.

"I have the interest of my people at heart," Ezekiel replies. "As I'm sure do you." Ezekiel leans over to whisper to Tyler/Taylor and then rights himself again. "I'll tell you what. I'll shave off one solar battery."

Daryl looks straight at Michonne. "Help me out here."

Michonne shrugs and says nothing.

"Shave off  _two_ batteries," Daryl attempts. Aaron told him the Council will approve a trade of no more than five, and Ezekiel has asked for six. "'N ya throw in an extra  _two_  grams of penicillin."

Now Ezekiel leans in the other direction and whispers back and forth with Michonne. When he sits straight again, he says, " _One_  less battery. And I'll throw in  _one_  extra gram of penicillin."

"One less 'n  _two_  grams."

Ezekiel glances up and down the table at his advisors.

"It's a fair deal," Tyler-Taylor says.

"I'm okay with it," Jerry agrees.

"Very well," Ezekiel agrees. "Stop by the laboratory tomorrow before you leave. The penicillin will be packaged and waiting for you. Leave the batteries with Professor Moore." He extends his hand across the table, and Daryl shakes it.

Taylor-Tyler pushes a paper across the table to Daryl, on which he's written the trade deal. "Sign here."

The man extends a pen, which Daryl takes, but asks, "Hell we need a contract for? Me and the king just shook."

"It just makes it easier to update the inventory," Tyler-Taylor explains.

Daryl scrawls his signature across the page. He starts to push back his chair to stand, but Ezekiel says, "Stay a moment." Then he nods to dismiss his advisors.

Before Jerry leaves, he leans down and says, "You have to come see the baby before you go. He's already smiling!"

"That's just gas at this age," Michonne assures him.

"No," Jerry insists as he follows her out. "Nabila says they can smile for real at two months."

When the advisors are gone, Daryl leans back in his chair. "So what's this 'bout?"

"It's not  _about_  anything," Ezekiel says. "I just wanted to ask how Carol's doing."

Of course he does. He always does. "Doin' fine."

"Are you treating her right?"

"Mhmhm."

Ezekiel smiles. He looks different with that bald head. So damn… _normal_. "She seemed very happy when I visited the Hilltop for the inauguration." That was the last time Ezekiel set foot in Hilltop, almost two years ago. "It was good to see her so in her element. I bet she makes a fantastic mayor."

"Does."

"She'd have made a fantastic queen, too, but it was not to be."

Daryl looks at him warily.

"You know…" Ezekiel tells him, "I've never  _blamed_  you for loving her."

Daryl taps his nose, which has been reset since Ezekiel broke it. "Could of fooled me."

"It was your  _timing_  that was so atrocious. Why couldn't you have declared your feelings two years before? A year? Six months? For the love of God, even a  _day_?"

"Dunno how many times I can apologize for that."

"I don't want you to apologize to me anymore," Ezekiel says. "I want you to  _thank_  me. Thank me for finally putting a spur to your ass."

Daryl shoots him a puzzled look.

"You needed it, you know. But I think I know why you waited so long. You didn't think you were worthy of her. But after all these years, I suppose you've finally revised that misapprehension?"

"Nah," Daryl says. "Still wake up every damn mornin' beside 'er just thinkin' – hell did I do to deserve this?"

"Then I suppose she made the right choice." The metal folding chair scrapes back across the stage as Ezekiel stands. Daryl, surprised and a little confused by his words, stands, too.

Ezekiel walks down the stage steps, saying, "We're going to put on  _A Christmas Carol_." He turns and points up to the stage. "Right there. The play. Let the Mayor know anyone in Hilltop is welcome to come see it, but I will need a head count for each showing. It will play Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evening the first week of December. "

"Yah serious?" Daryl asks and jumps down from the stage into the front aisle.

"Jerry's going to be the ghost of Christmas Present. I'm going to be Bob Cratchet. I tried to talk Michonne into being the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, but she wasn't interested. It's too bad you don't live in the Kingdom." Ezekiel points to him and grins. "You'd make an excellent Scrooge."

 


	4. Chapter 4

Daryl strolls down the worn astroturf of the old football field alongside Judith to check their targets. "Think I won this time," he says. 

"No. My group is closer."

"Yeah, closer to the ring  _outside_  the bullseye."

"The shots are closer to  _each other_."

Her shots are a full ring off the bullseye, but they're all right on top of each other, tearing what looks like a single hole into the paper. "Good group." Daryl pats her hat down on her head. His Little Ass Kicker is not so little anymore.

She tilts the hat back up. "So I won?"

Daryl shot a handgun for the first time when he was eight, with his father's rough hands over his, and the man's cruel voice in his ear, but he was still getting comfortable with the kickback two years later. He couldn't shoot with Judith's accuracy until he was thirty. She clearly does not suffer from Rick's bad aim. "I'll give ya the handicap, seein' as yer  _ten_."

He returns to the firing line and begins to collect the spent brass from the ground and slip it into his jacket pocket. The Hilltop doesn't have the stores of ammunition the Kingdom discovered in an underground bunker last year, but they do have a number of dies, casts, and reloading presses from that run to Cabela's. They make their own gunpowder from saltpeper, charcoal, and sulfur. They manufacture the saltpeper from horse urine and other manure soils, sometimes even bat guano. The charcoal they make by putting wood in a metal drum and setting the drum in a piping hot bonfire for hours. And the sulfur they got by raiding garden stores.

"Uh, technically…that brass belongs to the Kingdom," Judith tells him.

"But ya ain't gonna tell no one," Daryl says as he slips another handful into his pocket.

"Well, we don't need it as badly as you do," Judith concedes.

As he walks her back toward the center of the Kingdom, Daryl says, "Ya know…you might could play with R.C. more."

"All he wants to do is play dumb baby games."

"Like?"

"Chess."

Daryl huffs. "Sounds more like a smart adult game. He beat you? 'S that why ya don't want to play with 'em?"

Judith glowers, which Daryl takes as a yes.

"He's afraid of shooting a gun, you know," Judith tells him.

"Well, 's only six. Might could change."

"Mom tried to show him how, and he just screamed when it went off. She says she's going to give it a few more months before she tries again. How am I supposed to play with a little kid who's afraid of guns?"

"Used to want my big brother to play with me somethin' awful. But he never seemed to have the time. 'N that always made me feel like shit."

Judith's face scrunches up as she seems to consider this possibility.

"Just sayin'," Daryl tells her. "Wouldn't kill ya."

Later that evening, after dinner, Judith takes Daryl's advice. While Michonne and Daryl sit at one of the picnic tables finishing up their meals, the kids abandon their empty plates and slip off to play chess on an overturned barrel in the courtyard.

Michonne stabs a green bean with her fork and asks, "Where's Henry? I heard he came with you, but I haven't seen him."

"Dippin' his wick."

Michonne chokes down her bite as she laughs.

"'S the way Carol puts it. Think he's still in Jessica's trailer. Havin' a private dinner."

"Ah. Well, she  _is_  pretty."

"Pretty dumb," Daryl mutters.

Michonne chuckles. "She's not the sharpest tool in the shed. But she's sweet. I hear men like sweet."

"Sweet ain't half bad." Carol's always been sweet to him, except, of course, when he's honestly needed a slap upside his head. "But dumb gets old fast. And Jessica ain't got no real skills. Couldn't kill a walker to save 'er life."

Michonne glances over to where R.C. is moving a chess piece across the board. "Yeah, well, sometimes I'm afraid that's going to be the case for R.C. He's too sensitive. That part of Rick is in him…but the tougher part…" She shakes her head. "He didn't get that."

"Rick was only tough when he  _had_  to be. Maybe R.C.'ll be that way, too."

"I hope so. But I don't know that he will."

Daryl glances over his shoulder at the boy, who has just shouted, "Check!" triumphantly, before looking back at Michonne. "Kid's damn smart. Smarter 'n Rick was. Smarter 'n you. Hell, smarter n' you and Rick put together."

"Tell me about it."

Daryl takes a sip of his sweet tea and sets the pewter pint glass down on the picnic table. "Reached a point now, we need engineers more 'n killers." It's a truth he doesn't quite want to accept, a truth that makes him feel less necessary, but it's a truth just the same. "Ain't no shortage of killers in this world. Pretty damn big shortage of engineers."

"Maybe you're right." Michonne sighs and crosses her arms on the table. "Do you sometimes feel like you're the last of your kind?"

"Hell, felt like that my whole damn my life."

[*]

Early the next morning, Carol sits down on the edge of Hershey's bed and presses her palm to his forehead.

He throws his quilt off. "You're not holding me home  _again_  are you?"

She smiles. "Most kids wouldn't be so eager to get back to school."

"Staying home is  _boring_. I want to see Gracie and all my friends."

"Well, you seem fine. I'll make you some oatmeal and then I'll walk you over."

After Carol drops Hershey at school, she asks Barbara to pick him up and watch him until Daryl gets home. Then she heads for the front gates of the Hilltop. A surprised chorus of, "Mayor?" rises from the team of eradicators when she joins them just inside the fence line.

Rosita has just finished pumping, and she hands off the filled bottle and hand pump to Eugene, who is holding a squirming little Gene on his hip. "There's three more in the cooler at home," Rosita tells him. "Clean that pump."

"Don't you need to express additional liquid refreshment in the course of your day to keep your mammary - "

"I have another pump in my pack," Rosita interrupts Eugene. She ruffles Gene's thick, dark hair, which curls in the back. "I can't wait to wean you, little guy," she coos. The toddler smiles. His eyes are a warm brown, and his skin is just a shade darker than Rosita's, which has caused the town gossip to narrow the father down to a potential three men, all dead now. "Be good for papi."

"Mamá, Mamá, Mamá, no Mamá Mamá pway wes wes wes, Mamá," Gene blubbers.

Rosita leans forward and kisses him on his forehead."Let's roll!" she announces to her team, and Bertie slides open the front gate.

Carol puts a hand on the hilt of her knife and feels a sudden jolt of adrenaline course through her veins. She can't wait to do a little walker slaying. She's going to have a pile of untouched papers to go through tonight, but it's well worth it.

[*]

Daryl glances at the sun in the sky. "Wastin' daylight, Henry," he calls. He's anxious to get back to Carol. He's pretty sure he's getting laid tonight, since he didn't yesterday or the night before. He's figured out that she doesn't typically like to have sex two nights in a row, but she also never makes him go more than three days without it. She claims he gets grouchy if she does.

Henry kisses Jessica one last time before drawing away from her and heading toward his horse. The strawberry blonde giggles and waves goodbye to Henry with her finger tips, and Daryl can't believe she's twenty-nine. She acts more like she's seventeen. "Don't stay away long," she tells Henry.

"I won't." Grinning, he vaults onto his horse.

Before them, Michonne swings open the gate. "Tell Carol and Hershey I said hi," she says as Daryl rolls his motorcycle near her with his feet.

"Carol wanted to come," he tells her, "see ya 'n the kids, 's just – "

"- I know. It's hard for the  _Mayor_  to get away for an overnight. Maybe I'll come see her sometime."

Daryl nods, starts his bike, and whirs through the gates of the Kingdom with Henry galloping behind.

[*]

Carol returns in the evening feeling invigorated and covered in walker guts, and she washes up at the bathhouse and changes her clothes.

When she gets into her little cabin, Daryl is sitting in his arm chair by the fireplace and fiddling with his crossbow.

Hershey is setting the table while Henry tends a pot of stew. "We got started on dinner," Henry says. "Barbara said you were out with the eradicators, and we didn't know when you were getting home."

Hershey gets an extra place setting for her. She's impressed they've taken it upon themselves to feed themselves. "Good to have my boys back safely." Carol walks across the wood floor to bend down and kiss Daryl. He tastes like wild black berries. He probably snagged some on the trip home. She draws back and asks, "Bring me anything?"

"Tequila," Daryl answers.

"Are you going to make me a margarita later?"

Daryl _Pffts_.  Then he mutters, "Zeke shaved his head 'n beard."

"What?"

He tightens the new string he's just replaced on his favorite crossbow. "Looks like a man baby."

Henry takes the pot off the wood stove, sets it on a hot pad in the center of the table, and begins dishing the stew into bowls.

Daryl leans his bow against the side of his battered, worn, but comfortable black leather arm chair – a chair he picked up from some house on a supply run three years ago and which Carol decided wasn't worth arguing over, even though it doesn't match the rest of the furniture at all and looks as ratty as a junkyard dog. He heads for the table.

Carol follows him, asking, "Why would Ezekiel do that?" She sits down opposite Daryl at the small, four-person wooden table.

Henry takes his seat opposite Hershey and answers, "Because he has the hots for Michonne."

" _What?_ " Daryl and Carol both reply simultaneously.

"You heard what she said, Daryl," Henry replies. "She told him they looked like brother and sister with the dreads, and the next day he shaved them all off."

"Oh." Carol says.

"Oh  _what_?" Daryl asks.

"Do you want to explain, Carol, or should I?" Henry asks.

"Grace first," Carol says.

Daryl guilty swallows the spoonful of stew he just put in his mouth.

Hershey and Henry immediately put both of their thumbs up and chorus, "Not it!"

Carol puts her thumbs up, too, as Daryl sets down his spoon. "That means you have to say grace, Pookie."

"Ain't fair. Had my hands full."

"Because you were eating before we said grace," she scolds playfully.

"Fine," he mutters and bows his head. Quickly, he intones, "J.C., thank ya much for this food we's 'bout to enjoy and for the beautiful woman who prepared it."

"Uh…" Henry says when Daryl looks up again. " _I_  prepared it."

"Oh. Yeah. Sorry. Reflex." That's his usual grace, because it's usually Carol who's cooking.

Carol picks up her spoon and explains, "Ezekiel doesn't want Michonne to think of him as a brother."

"Because he has the hots for her," Henry adds.

"Nah," Daryl says.

"I'm a bit surprised he'd go for Michonne," Carol says, "given how much they used to disagree with each other back in the war, but I can't think of any another reason why he'd shorn those gorgeous locks after she said that."

" _Gorgeous_?" Daryl mutters. "Gnarly things." He slurps his stew off his spoon.

"I wonder if  _Michonne_  is interested in  _him_ ," Carol muses.

"Doubt it," Daryl says.

"Why's that?" Carol asks.

"Hell is there to be interested in?"

Carol decides it would not be judicious to answer that one, and she's glad for Hershey's excited interruption: "I got to be the quarterback in the soccer game at school today!"

"There is no quarterback in soccer," Henry tells him.

"Oh." Hershey gets a confused expression on his face, and for a moment, Carol thinks, she can actually  _see_  Glenn. "Well, who's the most important guy?"

"Center midfielder?" Henry speculates.

"Yeah! I got to play center midfielder."

"Make any goals?" Daryl asks.

Hershey frowns into his stew. "No."

"Ya will," Daryl assures him. "Ain't no one can run faster than you. Ya got speed like yer daddy."

"You don't run  _that_  fast," Hershey tells him.

Daryl swallows hard and looks at Carol. Of course Hershey never met Glenn, but Maggie died just over two years ago, in the War with the Whisperers. Until then, Daryl and Carol were  _Uncle Daryl_  and  _Aunt Carol_  to Hershey, and that's what Hershey continued to call them after he moved in with them.

"Daryl meant your biological daddy," Carol explains. "He could run really fast. He helped us all out of a few jams that way."

"Oh."

After dinner, Henry disappears to go hang out with a friend, and Daryl and Hershey play checkers on the living room coffee table while Carol pours through the day's notes on her rolltop desk. Aaron has emptied the week's suggestion box into a folder for her, and there are twenty total, six of them from the  _same_  old, meddlesome woman they took in two years ago from Alexandria. Nearly all of the suggestions are petty complaints to which Carol has to write a politely dismissive response, though one, from one of the farmers, is actually a helpful suggestion she'll bring up before the Council tomorrow.

As she writes, she listens to Daryl and Hershey's quiet conversation and the sound of the checkers clicking and clacking across the board.

Daryl says, "Don't think ya wanna make that move, son."

He throws in two more  _sons_  before the game is through, just to make sure, Carol thinks, that Hershey knows full well that Daryl is just fine being the boy's daddy.

They're folding up the board when a plaintive howling arises from behind the cabin.

"It's getting cold now that it's October," Hershey says. "Can we start bringing Merle in from his doghouse at night?"

"Yeah," Daryl says. "Go get 'em."

Hershey returns with the big black dog, a mutt that is at least part labrador and they don't know what else. But he does a good job retrieving both birds and small game. Merle runs barking into the cabin, chases his tail around the bear skin rug in front of the roaring fireplace opposite the coffee table, bounds over to Hershey and licks his face, attempts to sniff Carol's crotch only to be pushed away, and then barks his way to Daryl, who is sitting in his arm chair. Merle rears up on his hind legs, sets his paws on Daryl's knees, and lets his tongue loll happily out of his mouth while Daryl scratches his head and says, "Good boy, who's my good boy?"

Merle barks once, loudly.

"Ya get John's bitch pregnant yet?" Daryl and one of the other hunters have been trying to breed their dogs. "Ya knock her up good?"

Merle barks three times.

"Good boy!"

"I wouldn't trust Merle's word for it," Carol tells him as she slides out a fresh sheet of paper.

Hershey claps his hands together. "Here, Merle! Here!" The dog looks from Daryl to Herhsey and back to Daryl and then to Hershey, as though his loyalty is deeply divided.

"Go on!" Daryl tells him and pushes the dog off his knees. Merle bounds over to Hershey and knocks the boy, laughing, to the bear skin rug before assaulting him with long strokes of his tongue.

Carol smiles. "A boy and his dog," she says, and then she gets back to work.

[*]

Daryl is doing that thing where he just sits in his chair and stares silently into the fireplace. He's been doing it for almost an hour since he put Herhsey to bed. He's not cleaning his rifle or waxing the strings on his bow or reading a motorcycle manual or anything. He's just sitting and staring and…waiting. For her.

Carol shuffles her completed responses into the manila folder, walks over to his arm chair, and asks, "You got room?"

"Mhmhm."

She curls onto his lap and he wraps his arms around her.

"What's on the fire?" she asks. " _60 Minutes_?"

"What?" he mutters.

"It's like you were watching T.V." She can imagine him in the old world, lounging on the couch of a cabin or trailer or extended stay hotel in his wanderings with Merle, just staring at the television. Although  _60 Minutes_  would not be the show she would imagine him watching. "What was your favorite T.V. show in the old world?"

" _Gunsmoke_."

"You're not that old.  _I'm_  not even that old."

"Reruns. Used to watch a lot of old westerns."

"Yeah. What did you like about them?"

"'S always bad guys. 'N 's always good guys. 'N ya always knew which was which." He looks down at her in his lap. "Ya ready for bed?"

"I'm still a little keyed up from all those complaints from old lady Witherspoon. I'm not really tired."

"Yeah, but ya  _ready_  for  _bed_?"

She smiles. "You want to get laid, don't you?"

"Been a couple nights," he reasons.

Their heads turn as the door opens. Henry clomps in and immediately looks abruptly away from them.

"It's okay," Carol assures him as she slides out of Daryl's lap. "You haven't interrupted anything." She settles in the wooden rocking chair nearest the fireplace, the one she used to rock Hershey back to sleep those first three months after Maggie died, when the then five-year-old would awake screaming in the middle of the night.

Even though she and Daryl have pulled apart, Henry concentrates fiercely on unlacing his boots for a while. He steps out of them, lines them up against the cabin wall, and finally looks at them.

"How was Jacob?" Carol asks. Jacob, who is eighteen now, is one of the hunters and Henry's best friend.

"He's moving into the dorms," Henry says. "And his parents are giving his old bedroom to that elderly couple from Oceanside."

"They're in their sixties!" Carol cries.

"Oh, well…they look eighty."

"Told ya," Daryl mutters.

"Well, I guess that means the last dorm room is taken, then, and we have no one to give your bedroom to…" Carol smiles. "So you have to stay here."

"The dorm room has bunk beds. I'm moving in with him. We agreed tonight."

Carol's smile fades. "Are you sure you - "

"- I'm sure," Henry interrupts. "I'm moving tomorrow."

"You have your own room - "

"- Carol." This time it's Daryl interrupting. He said her name sharply, but now his tone softens: "'S time, sweetheart."

Carol sighs. "Well, I'll help you pack when you get back from the hunt."

[*]

In the aftermath of love, Carol's heart beats hard inside her chest. She breathes in Daryl's scent – sweat and soap, earth and smoke – and kisses his bare shoulder before snuggling in. "Ten minutes of cuddling, please."

"Mhmhm." His sinewy arms encircle her.

They haven't lit the small bedroom fireplace – all of the bedrooms have one, and they vent through clay chimneys –so she appreciates the warmth of his embrace. Daryl began building this cabin for her and Henry ten months after they left the Kingdom for the Hilltop. Until then, Carol and Henry shared an RV, and Carol sometimes snuck into Daryl's tent at night to make love. When he told her he wanted to build a cabin for all of them, she took it as a sort of marriage proposal, as close to one as she was ever going to get, anyway.

Daryl worked under the guidance of the Hilltop's master carpenter and with the help of two of his apprentices. Daryl made Henry help, too, and the boy enjoyed the project so much that he began to talk of apprenticing himself to the carpenters. Daryl grumbled about him choosing the carpenters over the hunters, until Carol told him he had to be more supportive. So finally Daryl told Henry, "Buildin's just as important as huntin'. Do what the hell ya want. Just think ya'd make a damn good hunter is all."

"Yeah?" Henry asked. "That's all I really wanted to hear." And the next week, when his first and last school year at the Hilltop wrapped up, Henry formally apprenticed himself to Daryl.

It's strange, Carol thinks, how well they get along now, given that Daryl couldn't stand Henry for the first four months they lived at the Hilltop. Carol accused Daryl of jealousy, saying, "You're not ever going to be the  _only_  person in my world." Daryl replied, "Ain't jealous. 'S just he's a little shit, Carol." Carol went a bit mama bear on him for that comment, but she ultimately cooled and said, calmly, "Then help him be less of one."

Daryl's so quiet that Carol assumes he's fallen asleep, but when she raises her head to peer at him, he's just staring up at the shadowy patterns of starlight and darkness that scatter across the logs that form the ceiling.

"You okay?" she asks.

"Mhmhm." He raises his free hand – the one that's not on the small of her back – and gnaws on his thumbnail. It's amazing he still has a nail there. She waits for him to say what's on his mind, and he finally does: "When I said his daddy could run fast, Hershey…Thought of me first."

"You know," Carol says, "he's probably thought of you as his daddy for a while now."

"Maybe." Daryl lets his hand fall. "What he don't know is I got his daddy killed."

"He doesn't know that because that never happened. That wasn't your fault."

"Just 'cause Maggie forgave me don't mean – "

"- Maggie didn't  _forgive_  you," Carol says, "because she didn't blame you. She  _absolved_  you. Please tell me you accepted that absolution."

"Ain't that I feel guilty 'bout it anymore. 'S just…'M raisin'  _Glenn's_ boy. 'N those are damn big shoes to fill. 'Cause I ain't half the daddy Glenn would have been. Hell, he'd of made a fucking six-hundred-page scrapbook by now."

Carol chuckles. She kisses his shoulder. "You're an excellent daddy, Daryl. You raised Henry. And he's less of a little shit now, isn't he?"

Daryl snorts. "Well he ain't little anyhow."

"Taller than you now."

"Don't remind me. One day I'm gonna be old and slow enough he could kick my ass."

"One day?" Carol asks with a smile.

" _Not_  today," he insists.

She lays her head back down against his shoulder. They grow quiet again, and beyond the fastened shutters of the window, she can hear the fall crickets singing song of love. Her thoughts weave their own twisted path down sad alleyways of yesteryear. "It's different for me," she says.

"'S differ'n?"

"Maggie died when Hershey was five. He still remembers her, and hopefully he always will. You may have gone from Uncle Daryl to daddy, but I think I may  _always_  be  _Aunt Carol_  to him." She sighs. "And I guess I'll always be  _just_  Carol to Henry."

"Yer Henry's mamma and ya damn well know it. Just 'cause he don't use the word don't mean he don't see ya that way. But he's ten when he met ya."

"I know he sees me that way," Carol admits. "But it's possible I'm never going to  _hear_  anyone  _call_  me mama again." She bites down hard on her bottom lip to try to keep the tears in, but it doesn't work. She sniffles instead, but that doesn't quite force them back.

"Hey, hey…" Daryl rolls to face her. He pulls her flush against his naked chest and tries to kiss the tears away. Eventually, he gives up and wipes them off with his thumb.

Carol bends her head and buries her face in the crook of his neck. When she's recovered herself, she pulls back, the tears still drying in streaks against her cheeks, and says, "I didn't even know I wanted a baby until we lost it."

Daryl's jaw clenches and his nostrils flare. They don't talk about that years-ago miscarriage, but she knows it affected him deeply.

It happened before the War with the Whispers, before Maggie died, before they applied to the Council to adopt Hershey. She didn't even know she was pregnant. Sure, she hadn't had a period in three months, but sometimes she went seven to ten weeks between them. She figured she was just starting menopause. And yes, she was gaining weight, but those were flush times, before the War, during a bountiful harvest. But then she started cramping terribly in the middle of the night. Her groaning woke Daryl. He insisted she go see Siddiq, and she miscarried in the clinic.

Daryl kept asking Siddiq, over and over,  _Hell's wrong with 'er? Hell **is**  that?_

Siddiq had to explain to him what had happened.

Now that Carol hasn't had a period in a year, there's no longer any chance of pregnancy, and she wouldn't want to get pregnant at this age anyway. But sometimes she still thinks about what might have been.

"Sorry," Daryl murmurs.

"For what?"

"That I wasn't there for ya. Way I should of been."

He got badly drunk that night and wandered off outside the gates of the Hilltop. She was terrified he'd never come back, and yet angry that he left, so angry, that she didn't go looking for him.

But he did come back. At sunrise, he crawled into the bed where she'd finally cried herself to sleep. She awoke at the feel of his cold leather vest pressed against her arm and at the pungent waft of the whiskey on his breath. He lay his head on her chest and wept.

"Neither of us handled it well."

"I love you, Carol," he whispers. "'N Hershey and Henry love you, too."

"I know." She pulls the quilt up to her neck and kisses his forehead. "But Henry's moving out."

"'S time."

"I  _know_. But it's still too soon. He's moving  _tomorrow_. It's so sudden." She rolls on her side and pushes back against him, spooning into the curve of his body.

Daryl settles his arm around her.

"Ten minutes of cuddling?" she asks again.

"Won't move until ya fall asleep."

"And if I don't?"

"Still won't move," he promises.

But she does fall asleep, there in the protective curve of his muscular arm, with her bare back pressed to the warmth of chest, and the sound of his gentle breathing in her ear.


	5. Chapter 5

Merle and Daisy sniff the ground and then take off running through the woods. Four hunters follow. When the dogs split off in two directions, Daryl and Henry follow Merle, while John and his son Jacob follow Daisy.

"Where's Daisy going, you think?" Henry asks as they jog. "Deer tracks go this way."

"After somethin' ain't as good, probably. Merle's nose knows."

In the end, they get a buck. Daryl has two arrows in it before Henry gets a shot off from his rifle, but it's the gunshot that finally falls it. They rush forward to the fallen creature, which Merle circles in a proud display of triumphant barking.

"Shhh!" Daryl orders, and the dog yips once and then falls silent. It's too late. A couple of walkers have been drawn and now lurch toward the scene.

"Put the deer out its misery," Daryl orders as he shoulders his bow, draws his knife, and prowls toward the emerging walkers. He doesn't need to say it, though, because Henry already has his hunting knife drawn and is on his knees.

When Daryl returns with walker blood staining his lower sleeves, Henry is field dressing the deer. Daryl lets the young man do the work and leans back against the rough bark of a tree to observe. "Cut all the way to the jawbone," he says. Henry has stopped at the breastbone.

"I didn't because I'm mounting the head. In my new room." Henry turns his knife blade upward and, starting at the pelvic cut, cuts through the muscle layer.

Carol's never let them keep an entire  _head_ , though there is a pair of antlers hung over the fireplace. Daryl insisted on that. It was Henry's first solo kill. Since then, they've just cut off the antlers for practical use – the butcher grinds them, boils the grounds, and then strains them to make gelatin. They in turn use the gelatin in baking. Enid says she read it's good for improving the immune system.

Henry fishes a string out of his jacket pocket, cuts a hole around the anus, pulls it to the inside, and ties it off to prevent spillage.

"Be quick on the windpipe," Daryl says.

"I know."

"If ya  _know_ , why'd the meat get tainted last time?"

"Because I fucked up last time. But I  _know_  I fucked up." Henry never says  _fuck_  in front of Carol. He cuts the windpipe and esophagus in two, stabs his knife into the ground, and grabs the windpipe with both hands before yanking. The entrails don't pull fee. "Shit," he mutters.

"Cut the connective tissue holdin' 'em to –"

"- The backbone. Yeah. I know."

Daryl wants to tell him not to be a little shit about taking correction, but he doesn't, because his own father called him a little shit all the time. It burned the most when Daryl was just trying to please the old man, just trying to show him he could do something,  _anything_ , right.  Maybe that's how Henry feels sometimes. 

So Daryl bites his tongue and doesn't give Henry anymore advice. He's itching to, because it looks like the bullet has ruptured an organ, and he wants to warn –  _keep the juices away from the meat_. But he doesn't warn and Henry  _does_  keep the juices away from the meat.

When Henry's done, Daryl pours water from the canteen on his hands and the young man wipes them with a rag he yanks from his back pocket to get off the excess blood.

"I'm going back now," Henry says. "I'll bring the deer. I know you'll want to stay to hunt some more, but I need to clean up and then pack."

"Ain't easy for Carol, ya know. You movin.'"

Henry looks up from the cloth that has grown reddish-brown. "I know, but she's just going to have to deal."

"Nah," Daryl says sternly. "She ain't  _just_  gonna have to  _deal_. Yer gonna have to  _help 'er_  deal."

Henry stiffens and drops his eyes, the way he always does when Daryl grows stern, as if he feels guilty and defensive all at once. "Okay," he says. "How?"

[*]

Carol sets the cardboard box full of fresh bedding on the bare mattress in the plain metal frame of the bottom bunk. The top bunk - which belongs to Henry's friend and fellow hunter Jacob - is already sloppily made up, and a  _Playboy_  magazine peeks out from underneath the pillow, though Carol pretends not to notice.

Henry came home early from the hunt today to pack. He had fewer belongings to move than she expected. He left all his comic books and fantasy novels behind for Hershey. For reading material, he's brought only a single hunting manual and the Bible she gave him for his confirmation when he was fourteen. The Bible sits atop the folded quilt. She picks it up from the box and feels the thin pages with her thumb. The cover is more cracked and worn than she would have guessed, and some of the pages are dog eared. "Do you still read this?" After all, he hasn't been to church for a year, except for Christmas and Easter.

"Sometimes. The Psalms mostly."

She sets the Bible back down in the box and looks around at the cell-like room with its tiny closet, crude dresser, and the two small, corner desks, one of which is covered with Jacob's hunting and firearms books, old beer bottles he's apparently saving for ornamentation, and a pair of dirty socks. "You're old room was bigger  _and_  you didn't have to share it."

"This is fine. Jacob and I get along great."

She sighs. "Now you're  _completely_  on the other side of town."

"It's only a  _mile_ ," Henry insists as he throws his bulging backpack onto the mattress. The metal box springs creak.

"Hershey doesn't really understand why you're moving out," she says. "You need to - "

"- Don't worry. I'm still going to hang out with him. I'm teaching a hunter's safety unit at his school tomorrow, and I'm taking half of Saturday off to come watch his soccer game. You know…" He smirks. "When he plays quarterback."

Carol smiles. Since he seems to be in a pleasant enough mood, she decides to broach a topic he's refused to talk about since she first brought it up a few months ago. "So…did you get to visit with Jessica when you went to the Kingdom?"

Henry sighs, opens the tiny closet, and pushes all of Jacob's dangling coats and hunting gear to one side on the wooden rod. "Please don't start with me about her again." He pulls out the remaining empty wooden hangers and sorts them to the other side.

" _Ten years_ , Henry."

"Daryl is five years younger than you." He shrugs out of his coat.

"That doesn't mean much when you're in your fifties, Henry, but you're  _nineteen_. I just don't know what you have in common with that age difference. Besides the  _obvious_."

"It isn't just about  _sex_."

"No?"

"I like her," Henry replies as he hangs his coat up. "I enjoy her company. She's sweet. She's fun. And I'm being respectful of her, if that's what you're worried about."

"That's not what I'm worried about."

"You're worried about me knocking her up."

Carol's face confirms her concern even though she doesn't say a word.

"If you  _must_  know…we haven't…" Henry flushes and closes the closet door. "You know. We haven't gone  _all_  the way. I'm being  _careful_." His hands on his hips, he studies the rough, unfinished clay floor of the dormitory. " _Technically_ , I'm still a virgin. And I'm not going to have  _sex sex_  with any woman until I'm married, when I know for sure we're in it together for life, because I realize we don't have any reliable birth control. And if I end up a dad, you know…I want to make sure my kid has a stable family. I want to be invested."

"Oh." Carol's surprised first of all that he's not having sex with Jessica, and second of all that he's being open about it. "Well, I think that's smart."

"So do I. Because you raised me right. You're a good mother, Carol."

Carol's chest tightens.

"I've been lucky to have you to look after me," Henry continues softly. "To teach me. And I know I've been kind of an ass lately. I don't mean to be, I just…I've felt… _hemmed in_."

"You need your space," Carol admits. "To strike out on your own."

"Yeah. I do. But I'm not that far away." He slings and arm around her shoulder, hugs her, and kisses the top of her head. He has to bend down to do it. "I'll be around,  _Mom_." He lets go and unzips his backpack.

That single word -  _Mom_  - sings in Carol's heart as Henry unloads his clothes into the dresser drawers.

Before she leaves Henry's dorm, Carol stops in on a few other people to see how they're settling. She's genuinely interested, but she's also aware that she's up for re-election in three months and that making her presence known is a necessary part of the political game.

After Maggie was killed in the War with the Whisperers, Carol was elected in a hastily held special election and served out the last few months of Maggie's term. She was then re-elected for another, full, two-year term, but that term is now drawing to a close. If she wins, this next term will be her last, as the town charter places term limits on the mayor. So far, only one candidate has declared against her, a man named Roderick Hamilton, who currently serves as the Director of Farming. Roderick is a capable man,  _in his field_ , but Carol doesn't think he's ready to be  _Mayor_. The only person she would refuse to campaign against is Aaron, but he hasn't indicated a desire to run. He's saving his bid, she thinks, for when she's done with her final term.

The sun has set by the time she leaves the dormitory, and she follows the sound of barking dogs to John and Julie Markwood's cabin, where she assumes she'll find Daryl. When she comes around the side of the cabin, she sees a gray tentacle of smoke and is assaulted by the spicy-sweet smell of unfiltered tobacco. Daryl and John sit on the porch smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. Merle is humping Daisy on a blanket of fallen leaves a few yards from the porch. The scene is illuminated by a pair of torches planted at the foot of the porch stairs.

The men don't see Carol and continue their conversation. "Wish it was that easy for us," says John, gesturing with his cigarette to the dogs. He scratches his silver-gray hair, which in combination with his old-school handsome features and perpetually fine stubble has always reminded Carol a bit of George Clooney. "Just jump on 'em whenever the hell we want."

Carol can't hear if Daryl agrees.

"I swear, Julie only has sex with me once a month now." John has an old south, Virginian accent, the kind with just a faint hint of English in it. "And it's as if she's doing a  _chore_. I have been seriously thinking of widening my net, if you catch my drift."

"Don't piss away yer family like that, man," Daryl replies.

"Jacob's full grown. He's moved out of the house. That woman from Oceanside, the redhead? She's been giving me the eye. And you know what they say about redheads."

"Got yerself a woman," Daryl tells him. "She stuck with you through all this shit. Don't fuck it up for a piece of ass. Yer gonna regret it."

"I don't recall writing you a Dear Abby letter about it."

Daryl blows out a sharp stream of smoke. "Well don't fuckin' mention it if ya don't want my advice."

"How often you get laid?" John asks. "How many times a month?"

"None of yer fuckin' business times a month."

John chuckles. "So you've got it as bad as me, then?"

"Trust me. I'm doin' just fine."

"Really?" John asks. "I mean you aren't exactly Mister Romance."

"Carol likes me is all. Hell if I know why."

Merle has finished his mating and is sniffing a trail toward Carol now. She makes a lot of noise as she approaches so the men won't continue their private dialogue. Merle barks, runs to her, and jumps up on her until she tells him to heel.

"Howdy, Carol," John calls over the porch rail when he spies her. "I keep your man too late?"

"Well, I need to pick up Hershey from his friend's and get a late dinner started. So unless  _you're_  planning on feeding him - "

"- I assure you Daryl does not want my cooking. And my lovely wife is working late tonight with the Deputy Director of Education. Something about the new primary school curriculum?"

"I couldn't say," Carol replies.

"I thought the mayor knew about all these details."

"Well, they haven't brought it before the Council yet."

Daryl grinds his cigarette out beneath the heel of his boot and heads down the porch stairs. John calls for his dog, and Daisy runs to him.

As they walk home, Merle trailing after them and sniffing the ground, Carol says, "I thought you quit those nasty cigarettes."

"Ya thought wrong."

"They're going to kill you, Pookie."

"Not 'fore yer naggin' does."

Carol snorts. "What were you and John talking about?" she asks, even though she knows.

"Nothin'," he lies.

"Nothing? It's hard to talk about  _nothing_."

"Breedin' the dogs. Huntin'. Usual shit."

"Aha." She laces an arm through his and playfully kisses his leather vest over his shoulder. "Did you happen to have a little talk with Henry today while you two were out hunting? Did you tell him he should call me  _mom_?"

"Don't know nothin' 'bout that."

"Well, I suppose I'll take it, even if you made him to it."

"Ya kiddin'? I can't make that kid do shit."

Carol chuckles and slides away from his arm as Merle, barking, pushes himself between their two sets of legs. Carol looks down at the dog. "Mommy and Daddy are going to cuddle sometimes, Merle. You can't keep trying to stop it."

[*]

When Carol comes out into the living room later that night after tucking Hershey into bed, Merle is asleep on the bearskin rug before the fireplace. Daryl sits in his beloved arm chair sharpening one of his knives with a stone. The dishes she asked him to take care of are still on the table. As she gathers them, she clangs them together loudly and pointedly.

"Said I'd get those," Daryl mutters.

"Yes. But  _saying_  you will do something and  _actually_  doing it are two different things." She brings them over to the washing tub and dumps them in. "And I see you aren't rushing over to help me."

"Seems like ya got it under control."

Carol adds some soap to the water, and begins scrubbing. "You can take them out to the hand pump and rinse them when I'm done scrubbing."

"Yes'm." He hisses suddenly, puts his finger in his mouth, and sucks.

"You cut yourself?"

"Nah. Just nicked my thumb."

Carol rolls her eyes. "That  _would_  be cutting yourself. You need some antibiotic?"

"Nah. I sucked off the blood."

"Good Lord, Daryl. Sometimes…" She shakes her head as she resumes scrubbing.

Later, when he comes back from rinsing off the dishes at the hand pump, with the washing tub spilled out, she's at her rolltop desk. After putting away the tub and the dishes, he pokes at the fire to get it blazing better. Merle whimpers, lifts up his head, licks his chops, and settles back to sleep.

Daryl sinks back into his arm chair, where he begins sharpening a second knife. A few minutes later, Carol leaves her desk to curl up on the couch. First, though, she grabs her novel from the end table, the one she's been trying to find time to finish for two weeks.

After she's been reading for about ten minutes, Daryl looks up from his blade and peers at her curiously. "You done workin'?"

"I actually finished most of my work during the day today, believe it or not."

"Good. Ya deserve some time to relax."

"You know what would be even more relaxing?" she asks as she shuts her book and lays it on the end table.

"Sex?" he asks hopefully.

"No." She swivels so her back is against the arm of the couch and stretches out her legs across the cushions. "A foot rub."

Daryl lays the sharpening stone down on the small, circular table by his arm chair, stands, twirls his knife three times around, and then slides it with a click into its sheath. He begins to unbuckle his belt.

"I said  _not_  sex. A foot rub."

"Heard ya. Don't want all the shit on my belt pokin' ya." With his belt buckle hanging loose, he pauses to unclip and lay on the circular table his three sheathed knives, his holster and handgun, and his magazine pouch with two spare magazines. Then he empties his pockets of two pocket knives, a small box of matches, three spent shell casings, a stray bullet, and –

"Is that an arrowhead?"

"Yeah, found it in the woods today." He lays it with all of his gear, which is nearly spilling off the table. "Used to collect 'em when I's a boy." He slides his belt loose with snap and tosses it in his arm chair.

She chuckles. " _Used to_ , huh?"

He shrugs. He picks up the arrowhead and holds it between his fingers to show her in the dancing light of the fire. "This one's pretty cool, though, ain't it? Cherokee or some shit."

"Bring it closer."

He walks over and hands it her. She lifts her legs so he can sit on the couch and then lowers her stocking feet into his lap. As he yanks off one of her socks, she says, "It's  _pretty_. It's almost a jade color."

"Could make a necklace out of it for ya." He yanks off the other sock and rests a cool hand on her bare ankle. "If ya want."

She smiles. "And you don't know why you get laid more often than John?"

His eyes widen. "Ya heard that?"

"Every word."

He avoids her eyes and concentrates on her foot as he begins to rub it.

"What do they say about redheads?" she asks.

"Hell," Daryl mutters. "I don't even know who  _they_  are."

Carol turns the arrow head in her fingers. "Yes, please. I'd like a necklace. I'd say for our anniversary, but we don't really have one, do we?"

Daryl stops rubbing and looks at her warily.

"I told you, I don't care about formalities." She shrugs. "It's just…we  _do_  have a way of making it official, if we wanted to. The Hilltop has had a town marriage book for three years now."

Daryl begins rubbing her foot again. "Don't want to put it in the marriage book."

"Why?" she asks, feeling wounded by his response. Does he really not feel like this is a marriage?

"If'n we put it in the marriage book, got to date it with whatever day we put it in the marriage book. Be like sayin' we ain't been married all these years."

"Oh." Relief eases through her. "Well, we could backdate it. People have put their marriages in there who were married before the Turn, and they just put the date they were married in the old world, B.T."

"Bee tea?"

"Before the Turn. B.T. and A.T. After the Turn. Pookie, that's the calendar we've been using for  _four_   _years_  now." Of course, Daryl never fills out his paperwork and has no need for dates. She smiles. "Do you even know what year it is?"

"Judith's 10 so…10 A.T.?"

"11 A.T. So do you want to? Put our marriage in the book?"

He works a knuckle down her foot. "What date would we put?"

"Maybe when we moved into the cabin together?" she suggests.

"When was that?"

"6 A.T. Sometime in early October." She remembers the month because they had trick-or-treating a couple of weeks later, for the first time in Hilltop. Henry thought himself too cool to go at the age of fourteen, and he regretted not participating and eventually joined in, under the guise of volunteering to supervise a then two-year-old Hershey. Maggie let Henry take her son around, and she ended up hanging out at Carol's new cabin, drinking hot mulled cider and talking about her dreams for the future of the Hilltop, dreams Carol has been working to realize. "We gave out peppermints, remember?"

Daryl chuckles. "Yeah. Stale as fuck."

"Well, I hope fucks never grow stale around here."

He smiles and ducks his head. He shifts his massage to her other foot.

"So… we're doing it?" she asks. "Recording our marriage? Say…October 5, 6 AT?"

"October 7th."

"Why the 7th?" she asks.

"'Cause seven's a lucky number. Number of perfection or some shit, right?"

"I like seven," she agrees. "And it's already two weeks past October 7th, so you can give me that necklace for our belated anniversary."

"Leather chain okay?"

"Best kind."

When he stops massaging her feet, she shifts and curls up against him. "Want to fool around?" she asks, in that same teasing tone she once used at the prison.

"Pffft."

"I'm not joking."

"Yeah? Two nights  _in a row_?"

"Hey," she says. "I can be unpredictable."

"Yeah? You serious?"

She stands from the couch and holds out her hand to him. "Come on. Tuck me in."

Daryl grins, takes her hand, and follows her to bed.


	6. Chapter 6

Daryl nuzzles Carol's neck and cups a bare breast, which he squeezes gently. She swats his hand away. She doesn't like to be touched sexually after she's cum. He knows it, but he doesn't know  _why_ , and sometimes he can't resist those inviting mounds. He snakes his hand back and gives each one more squeeze before settling a hand on her hip. That she'll allow. Cuddling after sex, she likes.

He kisses her bare shoulder. "I do somethin' right?"

"What do you mean?"

"To get sex two nights in a row?"

She chuckles and rolls toward him. He fumbles for the quilt and pulls it up to their necks. Without the heat of sex, it's grown cool, because he didn't stop to light the bedroom fireplace. When they got in the room, he just kicked the door shut and tossed her, laughing, onto the bed.

Carol kisses his chin and butterflies her fingertips over the uneven scruff of his graying goatee. "You told John not to cheat on his wife."

"Shit, that's it?"

"It's just…overhearing your conversation with him. It reminded me how loyal you are. And I know you talked to Henry, even if you won't  _admit_  it…All that just made me appreciate you today. Even more than usual."

"Yeah? Well I like the way ya show yer 'preciation." He kisses her and cups a breast again.

Again she swats his hand away. "I'm not up for a second round."

"Just playin'."

She scoots in so her breasts are pressed against his chest and he can't access them. "Hold me. I'm cold."

He kisses her forehead. "I'll light the fireplace." The cool air assaults his bare skin when he gets out of bed.

"Nice ass," she says as he walks toward the crude wooden mantel and slides off one of the long fireplace matches. He glances over his shoulder and finds her lazily lying with her arm under her head, looking at him.

"Stop."

"Well it  _is_ ," she insists as she rolls away from him.

Soon the fire is gently burning and they're cuddled together under the quilt with Daryl on his back and Carol wrapped up in his arms. It's only October. They're going to need to pull out the wool blanket in winter for a second layer.

"Think I'll win again?" Carol asks. "The mayorship?"

"Ya even got any competition?"

"The Director of Farming."

"So that's a no, then?"

Carol smiles. "You ever think about running for Council?"

"Hell no. Got to go to 'nuff dumbass meetin's as is."

" _Four_  a year." As Director of Forestry, he has to give quarterly reports to the Council on the state of the wild game in the forests and streams, the status of the smokehouses, the hunters' need for equipment, and the results of their continued training.

"Yeah. 'N that's 'nuff."

"You were on the Prison Council."

"That was diff'rn," he says. "We met when we had to. When we needed to. We was barely survivin'. Scratchin' by. Figurin' shit out. 'N there were threats all the damn time. Ain't had a threat here in two years."

Part of him misses those days. He knows Carol doesn't. She misses the people, of course – Rick and Hershel, T-Dog and Beth, Glenn and Maggie - but not the  _times_. She likes this world they're building here, likes being settled, but still having a challenge and a purpose. But sometimes he feels like a caged animal. It's why he doesn't take as much time off as the other hunters – so he can get out in those woods every day, feel the thrill of the hunt, bury himself in the depths of the forest. It's why he volunteers to go on almost every trade and supply run. So he can be out there on that road, moving…moving….

But then he's got this to come home to: this warm cabin, this beautiful woman who loves him. He knows Carol wishes he were less restless, that he'd spend more time at home and less in the woods and on the road. But she tolerates it, too. He doubts any other woman would.

The door creaks open. In his haste to get Carol undressed, Daryl didn't shut it all the way. Merle pokes his nose in and pushes the door further open. The fire must have died out completely in the living room. The dog pads across the floor and jumps up into the bed. He attempts to wedge himself between them. "Down!" Daryl growls. "She's mine."

Merle barks.

"At the foot or yer out," Daryl tells him.

Merle whimpers but pads to the foot of the bed, where he circles before settling, his head on his paws, as he faces the fireplace. He lodges one last complaint in a whine.

"Shush," Daryl tells him. "Lucky 'm lettin' ya stay at all."

[*]

Carol sleeps later than she means to and awakes to the sound of Herhsey's laughter in the living room. She dresses and ventures out to find the boy already dressed for school and lying on his stomach on the bear skin rug reading one of Henry's old comic books. Merle is trying to turn the pages with his nose and getting pushed away. The re-lit fireplace crackles. Two empty bowls rest on the kitchen table, and Daryl is pouring coffee into a metal cup from the French Press.

"Did you make Hershey breakfast?" she asks.

"Mhmhm. Oatmeal. More for you in the pot." He gestures to the wood stove with his coffee cup and then sips. "Might be late tonight," he tells her. "Gonna survey some new hutnin' 'n fishin' grounds with Cyndie."

"Are you actually going to submit the survey report to the Council?"

" _She_  is."

"Oh, so you're making your new deputy director do all the reports?"

"Hell else I got one for?"

"Are you bringing Henry?" Carol asks as she picks up the French press and pours herself a cup. "He needs to learn the ropes. One day, when we're both dead and gone, he'll be doing your job."

"How ya know Cyndie ain't gonna be doin' it?"

"Because she'll be mayor." Carol takes a sip of her coffee. "If Enid isn't. Then she'll be Chairman of the Council."

"I'll take 'em," Daryl answers, "but he's teachin' hunter's safety at the school this mornin'. Guess I got some time to kill."

"Good, then you can walk Hershey to school."

"I'm old enough to walk myself!" Hershey insists.

"Kid's right," Daryl says. "Ain't that far. Practically 'cross the street."

"Okay, then, walk yourself, little man." Carol walks over to the rug and looks at the comic book Herhsey is reading. "Oh!" she exclaims. "No! That's inappropriate for you, honey." She crouches down and grabs the comic book straight from his hands.

"But Henry gave me that!" Hershey whines.

"I'll go through those comics later and sort out the ones that are appropriate for you," Carol says. "You'll have  _plenty_  to read. But now it's time to go get your backpack."

Hershey scrambles to his feet with a dark cloud on his face. He glowers at her, but he doesn't dare talk back. He does manage to stomp a few times on his way to his bedroom to get his backpack, and he's equally gruff when he jerks open the front door. "Have a good day at school today," Carol calls after him. "I love you!"

Herhsey slams the door behind himself without a word.

"Well that was pleasant," she says as she comes over to the counter where Daryl is still standing and sipping his coffee. She drops the comic book on it. "Did you know there were naked women in Henry's comic books?"

"They ain't  _neked_. Just ain't got a lot of coverage in the armor department."

Carol flips a page and points at three naked women feeding grapes to a Viking hero of some sort.

"Oh," he says.

"I hate these things." She closes it and rolls it up. "Even the regular ones. They're so sexist. The male heroes are usually covered head to toe, while the female ones run around in bikinis. Who can fight like that?"

""S good strategy."

"How?"

Daryl sets his cup down on the counter. "Ain't no man can fight a woman with 'er tits hangin' out like that. Too damn distractin'."

Carol smacks him on the ass with the rolled-up comic book.

"Bet you'd look damn good in a Wonder Woman costume."

"You want another one?" she asks as she raises the comic book.

He grabs it from her hand, whirls her around, and smacks her playfully on the ass before pulling her back against his chest. Nipping at her ear, he murmurs, "Bad girl."

Laughing, she squirms away.

"We got an hour," says Daryl, smirking lecherously. "'Fore I can take Henry to do that survey."

"We  _do_  have an hour," she replies. "This would be a good time to go down to the Council Chambers and record our marriage in the record book."

Daryl hrmphs. "That ain't half as fun as fuckin' ya bent over this counter."

"No, but it'll score you some points, which may pay off in the long run. Patience, Pookie." She kisses his cheek, slips the comic book from his hand, and throws it in the trash.

[*]

They're supposed to have two witnesses when recording anything in the marriage record book, and since Tara and Aaron are already in the Council Chambers pouring over the inventory in 3-ring binders, they get them to sign off on the entry.

"October 7th?" Aaron asks. "6 AT? Why wasn't I invited to the wedding?"

"Weren't no weddin'," Daryl replies.

"We just picked a date around the time we moved in together," Carol explains. She smiles at Daryl. "But maybe we'll renew our vows in the chapel when it's our tenth wedding anniversary."

Daryl grunts.

[*]

"Whoa!" John Markwood pulls the horse-drawn cart to a stop five miles outside the gates of the Hilltop. Beside him, his son Jacob, a scrawny, twenty-two year old with flaxen hair and blue-green eyes, adjusts his quiver, which was jarred when they stopped.

Daryl, Henry, and Cyndie hop off the back of the cart and gather their packs and weapons. Jacob turns and waves to Henry. "Good luck. Hope it turns out to be good hunting grounds."

"Thanks. And when you get back to our room tonight, would you mind cleaning up your shit?"

Jacob salutes him and grins as the cart takes off and the two hunters head back toward the Hilltop to the old hunting grounds.

Daryl's team, however, will be charting new ones, and they slip into the forest on foot. They spend most of the morning hiking and mapping the woods, and eventually they find themselves following a windy creek.

Daryl leaves the walker slaying to Henry, because Cyndie is drawing the map and he's busy looking for signs of animal habitat and nesting grounds. Winter is coming on, and game is going to grow scarce. The barren trees will make it easier for the deer to spot hunters and flee, and they won't have as much venison as they usually do. On the farming end, the goats will be rested and stop giving milk for two months, and the chickens will lay fewer eggs. He needs to think about fox, crow, grouse, and coyote for the winter, which aren't exactly the most popular items on the menu at Hilltop.

Cyndie looks down in the creek as they walk along the leaf-covered bank, where twigs crack beneath their feet and small stones crunch into the mud. "Guppies, mostly," she says. "That's not much for fishing, but if this leads to a lake…"

"We'll see," Daryl mutters.

"The fish are already starting to descend because of the cold," Cyndie tells him. "We won't be able to catch any past November, but this will be good to map for spring." She draws a line in her sketch book.

"Did you always fish?" Henry asks. "Before all this?"

She starts to reply, but a walker stumbles out between some trees in the woods that lines the creek, and Henry lunges in front of her to whack its head with staff. Some of the brains scatter onto the yellow-white paper and coat it in reddish-black.

"Sorry," Henry says. "Didn't mean to ruin your map."

Cyndie sighs. "That's okay. The scale was a bit off. I was going to redraw it anyway." She turns the page and begins sketching again as she walks around the fallen walker. "I grew up in Ocean City, Maryland," she answers. "We had a cabin on the beach. So…yeah. I've fished ever since I was kid, but in ocean more often than lakes. What about you? Did you always hunt?"

"Well, I was nine when the world collapsed."

"Oh, yeah, I forget how young you are. I was eighteen."

"Beaver damn," Daryl mutters as he leaps down into the creek bed to take a closer look.

Cyndie pauses to note it on her map. "I was in my first year of college at the University of Maryland when it happened," she tells Henry as she sketches. "I thought I was going to go into  _marketing_."

Henry smiles. "Well, I was learning my times tables. And playing little league baseball."

"Did you dream of being a professional baseball player?"

"Football, actually. My big brother was quarterback on the high school football team. I always looked up to him, you know." He swallows and grimaces. "The Saviors killed him."

"My brother, too," Cyndie says softly. "He was younger than me."

Daryl locates the beaver den, but when he sees the babies, he leaves it alone. Scrambling back up to the bank, he says. "Star that on the map. Get 'em next fall when they's grown."

"I'm totally going to make a beaver skin cap," Henry says. "Davy Crockett style."

Cyndie shoots him a puzzled glance. "You know how to make clothes?"

"Out of animals?" Henry asks. "Sure. Daryl taught me to skin and tan hides. Carol taught me to sew."

"Y'all," Daryl mutters, "this ain't social hour. Watch for signs."

Henry and Cyndie fall silent as they follow the creek all the way to its lake source. After she evaluates the lake, Cyndie says, "It'll give us largemouth bass, striped bass, and crappie."

"Crappy?" Henry asks. "That doesn't sound too appetizing."

Cyndie smiles indulgently. She sheds the fishing gear she's been lugging on her back. "I'm going to drop a line for a while."

"Seen bear tracks," Daryl says. "Gettin' ready to make dens soon. Gonna check it out." He jerks his head toward the woods and orders, "Henry."

"Well, actually, I thought I might drop a line for a bit, too, you know, since Cyndie brought an extra pole."

"Suit yerself." Daryl's actually glad Henry turned him down, because now he can get some solitude. He buries himself in the forest as leaves drift slowly from the trees and Henry and Cyndie's murmuring voices fade behind him.

[*]

Tara closes the Council Meeting Minutes notebook and Aaron issues the official dismissal, but he lingers in the Council Chambers after the rest disperse. Carol settles behind the great oak mayor's desk and looks at the inventory report prepared by the Director of Supply Acquisition and asks, "Did you have something you wanted to talk about privately?"

Aaron is pretending to look at the books in the bookcase to her left. He turns from them and slips into the desk chair across from her. "I'm thinking of running," he says.

Carol looks up from the inventory. "For this  _coming_  term?" She really thought he wouldn't, not while she still had one term available to serve.

He nods.

"You don't think I'm doing a good job?"

"I think you're doing an excellent job. But I think you need a break." He tents his fingers on the desk. "From this  _particular_  position. I'm sure you'll stay in the government."

Carol leans forward on her desk. "What's this really about?"

Aaron runs a hand over his beard and sighs. "I don't think they're going to elect a woman again. Not this time around. And I don't want Roderick to win against you. He's not ready. I am."

"Why wouldn't they - "

"- It was Maggie for three years before she became the official mayor, then another almost two as mayor, with you finishing out her term. Then you'll have served two years when this term is up. A woman has led this town for seven years. A woman is the Director of Defense, which we all know is the most important position after Mayor."

"After Chairman of the Council," Carol corrects him.

"Fine. It's the most important position in the  _cabinet_. A woman is Director of Education. A woman is Director of Water and Energy."

"And a man is Director of Farming. And a man is Director of Forestry. And a man is Director of Interior…I could go on. Three of the five members of the Council are men. It's not as if men are underrepresented."

"Carol, I'm just telling you what I hear. You can ask Daryl if you don't believe me. I'm sure he's heard it, too. I'm asking you to consider not running against me. Let me win this term. You can put your name in for a director's position. You'd make a great Director of Supply Acquisition. Tom's been kind of…" He gestures to the inventory book she has on her desk, "Undisciplined in that role. He's a great supply runner, but he's not exactly organized."

"I don't  _want_  to be Director of Supply Acquisition."

"Then run for Council. I'm sure you'll end up Chairman."

Carol leans back in her chair. "You really think  _Roderick_  will beat me?"

"I think  _any_  man would beat you. Not because he'd be better, but because the town wants more gender balance. If you run against me this term, we'll divide the vote and Roderick will most certainly win. If just I run against Roderick, I'm certain I'll beat him. I serve two terms, four years, and then you run again for your last term. Maybe they'll be ready for a woman again in four years."

"I'll be  _sixty_  in four years." Carol doesn't like to think about that. In her fifties, she still feels young, virile. Daryl helps her feel that way. But sixty just sounds old to her.

"And still going strong," Aaron says. "Just think about it. Please."

[*]

Carol gives Herhsey a hug and a kiss and prays with him by his bedside while Daryl sits on the edge of the bed looking for the place where they left off in  _Huckleberry Finn_. He finds the start of the last chapter just as they say "Amen."

"Goodnight," Carol tells the boy and kisses the top of his head.

"Nite, auntie. I love you."

"I love you, too, little man." Carol smiles and trails a hand over Daryl's shoulder as she leaves the room.

Merle pads in across the wooden logs of the floor, leaps up into the bed, and curls up against Hershey's side. The boy scratches the dog's head as Daryl reads the last chapter of  _Huckleberry Finn_.

Hershey is alert and interested, but Merle is half asleep when Daryl reaches the last line: "But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest," Daryl murmurs, "because Aunt Sally, she's gonna adopt me and sivilize me and I can't stand it. I been there before."

Daryl snaps the book close. Merle jerks his head up, narrows his eyes, but doesn't growl when he sees the source of the sound is Daryl. He snuggles back down against Hershey again.

"Auntie Carol adopted me a civilized me."

Daryl chuckles. "Yeah, kid. You and me both."

"Do you ever want to run away like Huck? So you don't have to deal with all the stupid rules?"

"Sometimes," Daryl admits. "But never for long. Always wanna come back here to y'all." Daryl ruffles his hair.

"Can Merle sleep with me tonight?" Hershey asks.

"Sure."

Daryl leans over, kisses the top of his head, and says, "'Nite." He checks the fire on his way out and makes sure it's burning low and safe but warm. He turns off the kerosene lamp on Hershey's bedside and sees the boy is already slipping into sleep. He closes the door gently behind himself.

When he comes out into the living room, Carol is just sitting on the couch staring into the fire. She blinks and turns her face toward him when he emerges. "Can we talk about something?"

Daryl's heart drops like a ball to the pit of his stomach. "What I do wrong?"

She laughs. "Nothing. It's not about  _us_."

"Oh." Relieved, he slumps down next to her on the couch and rests a hand on her knee. "What then?"

"What did you  _think_  you'd done?"

"Dunno. Thought maybe ya saw Samantha flirtin' with me down at the butcher's table."

She raises an eyebrow. "And did you flirt back?"

"'Course not. Wouldn't know how."

"So why did you think I'd be upset about that?" she asks.

"Hell if I know why women get ticked off 'bout the things they do. Then I thought maybe you were pissed off at me for bringing Henry that comic book with all the neked chicks in it."

"Well I didn't know  _you_  brought him that comic book until just  _now_. I assumed he picked it up himself somewhere."

"Ain't like I brought him a  _Hustler_! 'N I didn't read the damn thing. Just saw it was a comic."

"Aaron wants me to step down. Not to run for mayor."

Daryl rips his hand off her knee and sits straight. "Hell for!"

"He doesn't think the town will elect a woman again, and he doesn't want Roderick to win."

"Oh."

Daryl's quiet  _oh_  tells her all she needs to know. "You think that's true?"

"Nah! Yer gonna kick ass if you run."

"Daryl, I'm not asking for the supportive husband routine here. I'm asking for the  _truth_."

He sighs. "Some of the men…been callin' this place chick town."

" _Chick town_?"

He shrugs.

She sighs. "I guess I could use a break. Hershey's going to grow up fast. God knows Henry did. I should spend more time with him while he's still young."

"That what ya want?"

"I'm  _not_  stepping out of government completely."

"Runnin' for Council then?"

She nods. "And if I don't win a spot on the Council, I'll put my name in for a Director position. Defense probably."

"'N go head to head with Rosita?"

" _She_  could use a break. She's got a fourteen month old."

"Sure it's what ya want?"

"It's not exactly what I  _want_ ," she admits, "but I don't want to fight a losing battle either. And Aaron will make a great mayor."

"Aaron's gonna try n' make me turn in reports 'n shit."

" _Try_  being the operative word there." Carol smiles. "Thanks for helping me talk through it."

"I did good?"

"You did good. You used your words very well." She gently traces a scar on his cheek, one he got in the War with the Whisperers, and kisses him softly. "Would you do me a favor, Pookie?"

"Need me to rub yer tits for ya?"

Carol replies with a cool expression, and Daryl chortles.

"Can rub yer ass if ya prefer," he says.

"You're like a schoolboy sometimes. I need you to clean my handgun for me. I don't have time tonight if I'm going to get through the proposed rations and sign off on them."

"A'ight. I'll ram my rod down yer barrel for ya, if that's what ya want."

Carol tries to shoot him an annoyed look, but she ends up laughing. She shakes her head as she stands. "It's on the nightstand in the bedroom," she tells him before settling into the chair at her rolltop desk.


	7. Chapter 7

The next day Carol stops by Rosita's double-wide trailer where the harried woman is cajoling Gene to get down from the top of the cabinets he's somehow managed to climb up on. The toddler has wedged himself stomach down in the narrow space between the cabinet and the ceiling.

"He's a monkey," Rosita tells her. "I don't know how he does it. God help me. He was walking at elven months, and now he's climbing!"

Carol helps her get the boy down, and when he's on his feet, Rosita launches into a stream of angry Spanish that only makes Gene laugh. "You're going to your room, young man," she tells him, and whirls him around and marches him to his bedroom before rejoining Carol. "Sorry I'm late for the briefing. I take it that's why you're here? Eugene hasn't gotten back from his rounds with the Director of Energy."

"We can just have the briefing here."

Rosita walks to her kitchen. "Coffee?"

"Please."

They sit at the four-person card table in her cramped kitchen, and Rosita goes over what the defense forces have accomplished so far in mapping and scouting the island of territory they have made for themselves. "The Kingdom is mapping north and east, and then we'll share notes."

Carol asks Rosita how she'd feel if she put herself in for the Director of Defense position next term to give Rosita a break, but also because it's a position she's been thinking about all morning. She misses her days as a general in the War with the Saviors sometimes.

"I don't want a break!" Rosita exclaims, glancing toward Gene's room. "I'd go insane if I didn't have work to go to. And he'll be weaned soon. I can get out more with the scouts. I  _want_  to get out more. Eugene's got Gene covered."

"But…Gene's your son, too," Carol says. Actually, biologically, Gene is  _only_  Rosita's son, though Carol doesn't say that. "They grow up faster than you think. You blink, and - "

"- Why aren't you running for mayor again?"

Carol tells her and Rostia mutters, " _Chick town?_  CHICK town?" She peers at Carol through narrowed eyes. "And Carol Dixon's going to take that sitting down?"

Carol's momentarily startled because no one's ever called her Carol  _Dixon_  before. She finds she kind of likes it, and she smiles, but her smile fades when she thinks about what Rosita has just said.

Carol didn't come all this way from Ed to have a bunch of men tell her what to do. But she agrees with Aaron. She doesn't want Roderick to end up  _mayor_. He's not a bad man, or even an incompetent one, but he's not ready for that level of responsibility. Besides, they need him in his position as Director of Farming. "Aaron will make a great mayor," she says, but whether she says it to reassure herself or Rosita, she's not sure.

"Yes, he will," Rosita agrees. "In about two more years. After  _you've_  served your last full term. Carol, you can't take your name out of the running."

"What if Aaron's right? What if Roderick wins just because he's a man? And nearly all the men vote for him?"

Rosita leans forward over the table confidentially. "If he's going to get most of the men, he needs the vote of the scouts, of the watch, of the eradicators. Those are  _my_  people. And I can tell you right now who I'll be campaigning for. By the time I'm done, they're going to be convinced Roderick will gut our defenses."

"Well, I'm not sure he'd  _gut_  them, exactly – "

"- Roderick needs the hunters, too," Rosita interrupts her, "and I can bet who Daryl will be campaigning for."

"Daryl won't be  _campaigning_. Period."

"He can put in a word for you with his hunters."

Carol shakes her head. "I'm not going to ask that of Daryl. That's way outside his comfort zone. But…" She smiles. "If  _you_  want to be my campaign manager…"

[*]

"…and Cyndie speared that fish before I could even  _see_  it."

"Shhh!"

Daryl and Henry are sitting in ghillie suits, camouflaged in the brush not far from a pile of acorns, waiting for the deer to take the bait. With the leaves falling, tracking them without being seen has become more difficult, but they can still hide.

"Did you know Cyndie was a Robert Heinlen fan? She's read all of his books by now, just like me."

Daryl turns his eyes on him, gives him a burning look, and says, "Well, ya can tell Jessica all about Cyndie the next time ya stop by the Kingdom. For now, shut the fuck up."

Henry swallows and falls silent. He doesn't speak for another hour, and he redeems himself by being the first to spy the approaching deer and nudge Daryl. They sit as still as stones until the opportune moment arises, and then they make their shots. One of the three deer falls, and two flee. They chase down one, but the last gets away.

Henry grins as he begins to field dress the freshly fallen deer. " _Two_. I'm going to win my bet with Jacob."

In the distance, Merle, who was left to guard the first fallen deer, barks. "Finish up," Daryl tells Henry and runs back to the other deer.

Merle has inserted himself between the fallen deer and a walker and is barking like crazy. The dog leads the walker away from the deer a step at a time every time the walker shifts its interest from the dog to the deer.

The walker lunges and sweeps at Merle's face. Merle growls and sinks his jaws into the walker's hand. With its hand tearing off in Merle's mouth, the walker bares its teeth and leans down, but before it can chomp the dog, one of Daryl's arrows pierces the monster's neck.

The walker staggers backward as Daryl reloads and Merle steps back, still barking. Daryl shoots again, hitting the rotting creature's forehead this time, and it sags to the forest floor.

Merle barks triumphantly.

"Good dog!" Daryl shoulders his bow. "Good boy!" He fishes in his pocket and tosses a piece of jerky, which Merle gnaws on happily. Daryl scratches the dog's head and says. "Yer tough as nails, boy." Just like his namesake. But sometimes, Merle's just as big a dumbass as his namesake. "Don't let 'em get so damn close next time! Don't wanna lose ya."

Merle stands guard over Daryl as he field dresses the deer. Daryl glances at the dog and wonders, for the hundredth time, why animals don't get the disease. Merle was bit by a walker, once, on his hind leg, but Daryl killed the ugly bastard before it could bite the dog a second time. Daryl spent the next twenty-four hours anxiously wandering the woods and then pacing the cabin, sure the dog was going to get sick and die, angry and sad and taking no comfort from Carol, who assured him Ezekiel's tiger had never been infected. "The tiger  _ate_  walkers, Daryl," she told him, "and it didn't get sick. Merle bites walkers all the time, and he doesn't get sick."

"Yeah, but this ain't bitin'!" Daryl cried. "It's  _bein'_  bit!"

But Carol was right. Merle lived. His bite wound healed. But Daryl's still afraid that, one day, the dog will get too close, and walkers will eat him alive. "Be safe," he tells the mutt as he cuts through the muscle tissue of the deer.

Merle barks.

[*]

Carol waylays Aaron when he's picking Gracie up from school. She suggests to little Hershel that he and Gracie play outside for a while to get some exercise. "But stay within half a block," she orders the kids.

"I'll keep an eye on them!" shouts Barbara from the cabin across the way. She's sitting in a rocking chair on the porch and knitting. That woman is a saint. She babysits the entire town, and she's recently taken in a third orphan from Oceanside. (She already had two from Alexandria.) Her kids, aged ten to twelve, are playing jacks on the porch.

Carol invites Aaron inside the cabin, where they drop Hershey and Gracie's packs by the door. "Can I offer you some tequila?" Carol ask.

"You have  _tequila_?"

"Daryl brought it back from his trip to the Kingdom."

"All trade supplies are to be inventoried upon – "

"- It wasn't a trade supply. He found it in a house."

"All supply run supplies are to – "

"- Aaron, he wasn't on a supply run. It falls under personal scavenging. Now do you want some or not?"

"He hasn't drunk it all already?" Aaron asks.

"Daryl rarely drinks."

"Really?" Aaron asks in surprise.

"His father was a drunk. He's determined not to be." She goes to the kitchen, which is directly off the living room, and draws the bottle down from the cupboard, along with two whiskey glasses.

"Isn't it a little early in the day for tequila?" he asks as he follows her into the kitchen and looks around.

"You're going to want it after you hear what I have to tell you."

Aaron looks at her warily as she hands him two ounces in a glass. He sniffs it and takes a small sip. "Not bad. I got so messed up on this on spring break my senior year in college. I'd just had my first heart break. My fiancé broke off our engagement."

"Fiance?" Carol asks as she leads him to the kitchen table. "Back then, it wasn't legal – "

"- she was a woman." Aaron sits down across from her. "In retrospect, I see why it didn't work out."

Carol chuckles.

"But I did love her." Aaron takes a small sip of the tequila. "Sometimes I wonder what happened to her. Do you ever wonder? About all the people you used to know?"

"I didn't know a lot of people." She let Ed cut her off from her friends and family. That's how she thinks now. Not  _Ed did X_ , but  _I let Ed do X_. "But I wonder about the postman. We talked every day, for at least five minutes. I made him treats a few times a year."

She fell in love with him, for a while, if you could call that love. It was more like a schoolgirl crush. Her little secret liaison, her way of sticking it to Ed. Smiles and conversation and cupcakes. Once, he patted her on the shoulder. He was married too, she knew, because she noticed the ring. Maybe he was sticking it to a controlling wife, the way Carol was sticking it to Ed. Or maybe he was just a friendly man.

"Did you have family?" Aaron asks. "I mean, I know you had a husband and daughter, but…"

"I had a younger brother, but I hadn't seen him in …oh…fifteen years when it happened." That's what they call the outbreak these days.  _It_. "He managed to get out of our little town. He went to California for college on an academic scholarship and never came back. He called on occasion."

"Sent Christmas cards?" Aaron asks.

"He wasn't really a card guy." She looks at him directly. "I've decided I'm running for mayor again.  _This_  election."

Aaron blinks. "Ah." He takes a longer sip of the tequila this time. Then he hisses. "By the tone of your voice, I'm guessing there's no wiggle room in your decision?"

"None."

"And if Roderick wins because of it?"

"Then either you or I will be Chairman of the Council. And we'll be picking up his slack."

"The Chairman job is hard enough with a competent mayor in that office."

"I know how hard you work," she assures him. "I know how hard I work. But I'm still running. And I'm asking you not to.  _This time_. So we don't split the vote and I have a better chance of defeating Roderick."

Aaron sighs and scratches his cheek. "Why? Why can't you just wait four years and serve your last term? Maybe you'll develop some more ideas by then."

"Chick town?" she asks.

"Daryl told you that?"

She nods.

"Well, I think you're making a mistake. But I also know that look in your eyes. So…" He shrugs. "You have my vote." He raises his glass and smiles. "That is, if I can get another ounce of this."

"So I'm buying votes now?" Carol jokes as she pours him a little more. "And I thought you were a stickler for the rules."

[*]

Carol turns off her kerosene lamp and slides the top of her rolltop desk shut over it. The fire lightly illuminates the living room, along with the help of the dancing flames of a candelabra by the couch. Hershey went to bed an hour ago.

She stands and pauses to poke at the fire and bend down and scratch Merle behind the ears before sitting down on the couch and grabbing her book.

In his armchair, Daryl rips a piece of thread with his teeth and then ties it off.

"Are you  _sewing_?" she asks.

"Ghillie suit got torn up today." He rethreads the needle. "Just puttin' some of the fibers back in."

"Daryl Dixon," she mutters with a shake of her head. " _Sewing_."

"Ain't  _sewin'_. 'M  _fixin'._ "

"Looks like sewing to me." She opens her book. "You want me to do that for you?"

"Nah. I got it. Read yer book."

"You  _did_  clean my gun yesterday."

He pauses from his work and peers at her. "'M startin' to think ya just don't want to finish that book."

"It's kind of boring."

"Then hell, give it back to the lieberry 'n start 'nother one!"

"I can't. I can't  _not_  finish something I started."

"Yeah? 'S that why yer still with me?" he asks.

She laughs. "By that logic, I'd still be with Ezekiel."

Daryl glowers.

"Although I liked you first."

He pokes the needle into the ghillie suit, pokes himself, hisses, and sucks his finger.

"Let me do that for you, Pookie. I like to do things for you."

He smirks. "Oh yeah?" He glances down at his lap.

"I'm not giving you a blowjob. Tonight anyway."

He frowns but brings the ghillie suit over to her. "Thanks," he says. "Wanted to clean my rifle anyhow." He disappears, returns with the weapon and his cleaning supplies, and lays them on the coffee table.

"Would you put down a drop cloth, please? I don't want my table stained. More than it already  _is_."

He grumbles, but he goes to the kitchen and returns with –

"No! That's my good tablecloth!" Carol exclaims. "Get one of the old sheets from the hall closet."

"Yer damn high maintenance, woman," he mutters as he returns the tablecloth to the kitchen.

When he's settled on the floor, his back to a sleeping Merle and the fire, and his rifle disassembled on an oil-stained sheet, she pulls a thread through his ghillie suit and says, "I've changed my mind. I'm running for mayor after all."

"Mhmm." He sprays some lube on a cloth and wraps it around the tip of a cleaning rod.

"That's all you've got to say? Mhmhm?"

He rams the rod down the barrel of his rifle and pulls it out. The cloth has blackened. "What ya want me to say?"

"I'm not going to write your script for you. I'm just wondering what you  _think_  about it."

"Ain't surprised."

"I mean, what do you think about my chances?" she asks. "Do you think I'll lose?"

"Think yer a good mayor."

"Do you think I'll lose?"

He turns the cloth over and sprays it again. "Think ya deserve to win."

"Do you think I'll lose?" she repeats, more slowly this time, emphasizing each word.

"Think I'll vote for ya."

" _Daryl_ ," she scolds.

"Carol," he replies.

"Tell me what you think."

He pulls the rod out of his barrel and sets it down on the coffee table. "Think ya feel like ya got somethin' to prove."

"Maybe," she admits.

"So prove it."

[*]

Saturday is supposed to be Carol's day off. She attends Hershey's morning soccer game, where Henry cheers on his "little brother" and Daryl grunts at the coach over a bad call and is promptly told to "sit his ass down." Daryl gets that look on his face like he does when he's about to bump chests with someone, but he doesn't. He just mutters, "It was a shit call, 'n ya know it," and goes back to the sidelines to sit on the blanket next to Carol.

"Don't be  _that_  Dad," she tells him.

"Ain't. 'M sittin' down, ain't I?"

"It  _was_  a shit call," she agrees.

Hershey's team loses, but he scores two goals, and the boy is ecstatic. All of them - Henry included - eat lunch together at the cabin before Henry leaves to join the hunters. Carol asks Daryl to stay and watch Hershey. "I need to campaign. And you need a full day off for once. So unless you want to take tomorrow off and go to church with me in the morning - "

"- take today off," he interrupts.

"Can we play Stratego?" Hershey asks.

"Sure."

As the boy runs off to get the game, Carol shrugs into her coat. "Did you notice how much Henry was talking about Cyndie all through lunch?"

"Mhmhm."

She smiles. "I think Jessica may be a thing of the past."

"Hell you so happy for? Cyndie's same age as Jessica."

"Yes, but she doesn't  _annoy_  me." Carol snaps up her coat.

"Well, hate to burst yer bubble, but he's goin' to the Kingdom tomorrow. Kung fu seminar or some shit."

"But he's going to be back in time for Halloween, isn't he? To take Hershey trick-or-treating?"

"'S only gonna be gone two nights."

Carol heads out the door, a little bothered that Daryl knows more about Henry's life than she does. She starts with stopping by the blacksmith shop, and then moves onto the warehouse workers. She skips dinner to continues her baby kissing and jack jawing, canvasing trailer after trailer and cabin after cabin. The election isn't until January, but she want to start shoring up her votes now.

Carol can play the politician, as she did in Alexandria, but it exhausts her, and when she gets back to the cabin that evening, and finds the dirty dinner dishes  _still_  on the table, she just feels more exhausted. It doesn't help that Daryl and Hershey appear to be ripping up a clean white bed sheet in the living room.

"What  _are_  you doing?" she asks.

"Makin' Hershey's costume."

"I'm going to be a mummy!"

"Scary stuff," Carol says as she plops down on the couch and peels off her boots. "I haven't even thought about what we're going to give out this year."

"Make that hard honey candy," Daryl says.

"I'm not sure I have time to  _make_  candy this year. And we aren't getting enough honey rations for that now."

"Could ask Henry to make a trade with the Kingdom's bee keepers while he's there."

"Trade what?"

Daryl cuts into the sheet with his gutting knife and then rips another strand off. "That tequila, maybe."

"Aaron had some. I had some. But I think I have enough corn syrup to make some hard candy." She sighs. "Would you  _please_  take care of those dishes?"

"Hershey," Daryl orders. "Go scrub the dishes."

The boy jogs over to the kitchen, but Daryl takes them out to rinse them at the hand pump. Meanwhile, Carol scrounges up a light dinner.

She's up late working on responding to the suggestions, and she takes extra care to do so this time. Eventually, she feels a hand on both her shoulders and instinctively cranes her neck to receive Daryl's kiss. He plants his lips on that sensitive spot at the bottom of her neck, trails them up, and whispers in her ear, "Been two nights."

"You know, it's not a  _law_."

"Ya never make me go more 'n two nights."

A smile twitches at the corner of her lips. "And maybe it's been a mistake to spoil you."

"Please?"

Please is not a word that often falls from Daryl Dixon's lips. She chuckles. "How about a quick blow job?"

He hrmpfs. "Well if ya ain't  _invested_ …Don't want it."

"No?" she turns around in her chair and starts stroking him through his Wranglers. He hisses. "Because it kind of feels like you  _already_  want it."

"Jesus, Carol…" He bites down on his lip.

She unbuckles his belt. He's already taken the gear off, so she can slip it free easily. The buckle clangs as she drops the belt to the floor by her chair. She puts a hand on his button. "Sure you don't want it?"

He growls, somewhere deep in his throat. "'S go in the bedroom. 'Case Hershey comes out."

Merle tries to follow them into the bedroom, but Daryl pushes him out with a foot and shuts the door. Outside, Merle whimpers. When he turns around, Carol pops the button free and yanks down his zipper. He thuds back against the door as she slides to her knees.

Pretty soon, his own knees are buckling. He grabs the door knob for support. She loves it when he has to hold onto something. It gives her a rush of power to think how easily she can make him crumble.

He puts his other hand on the back of her head and murmurs her name, and his favorite endearments for her, which only seem to come out during sex –  _babe_  and  _darlin'_  and  _sweetheart_  and  _good, good girl_ ….

He's panting and trembling when she finally stands and walks backward toward the bed, saying, "My turn."

"Thought ya wanted to be quick."

"Well, even a good girl's entitled to change her mind."

"I oughtta leave you hungry for a change."

She chuckles, crawls on top of the quilt, and unsnaps her jeans. "Then I'll just take care of myself." She slides down the zipper and slips a hand inside. She doesn't have to tease him for long before he's on the bed, jerking her jeans and underwear down and replacing her hand with his mouth.

[*]

Halloween arrives and Hershey is adorable in his mummy costume, at least until it unravels. He comes home with a pillowcase full of miscellaneous goodies – homemade hard candy, bouncy balls, toy soldiers, and even a few stray bullets and a single shotgun shell, which he hands over to Carol saying, "You're treats."

"I don't even have a shotgun," she laments.

"Get ya one for Christmas, if ya want," Daryl says. He can always dig through housing developments until he finds one. It is Virginia, after all.

"That's all right. I'm happy with my AR-15 and my Sig 9mm."

Henry stays long enough to help Hershey sort his goodies before heading back to his dorm room. Carol walks him out onto the porch and asks, "How was Jessica?" When his face darkens, she insists, "I'm not  _starting with that_  again. I'm politely inquiring after your girlfriend."

"She was good. And she's not exactly my  _girlfriend_. I mean, we're not  _exclusive_  or anything."

"No?" Carol suppresses a smile.

"I mean, we're a long way away from each other. We can't see each other that often. So…" He shrugs.

"And the King?" she asks. "How was Ezekiel?"

"The usual. He's been working hard on that Christmas play."

"Has he made any progress with Michonne?"

"Not that I could tell," Henry says with a smirk. "But Judith is taking kung fu now."

"I'm not surprised."

"Listen, I really need to get going. They're having a Halloween party at the dorm. Cyndie said she was going to make - "

"- Go," she tells him. "I'm glad you stopped by."

"I'm glad, too. Happy Halloween, Mom." He kisses her on the top of the head. This time, she's pretty sure Daryl didn't make him say it. She smiles as he clomps down the porch stairs and disappears down the dirt road.

[*]

After much calculated effort, Daryl and Henry snag two wild turkeys during the first week of November, and the big birds now hang in the smokehouse. That, and venison, along with potatoes and a slew of vegetables and slightly sweet pumpkin pie, will make up the Thanksgiving meal, which is a town-wide affair.

As mayor, Carol is busy with making sure everything is in order for the upcoming feast, which will be held beneath the picnic pavilions with bonfires blazing all around. She consults with Rosita to make sure there will adequate coverage on watch as guards rotate in and out for the meal. She consults with the Supply and Farming Directors to make sure they'll have enough food, and with the Director of Education, Julie Markwood, to ensure that recreation is planned. There's going to be a flag football game, Julie assures Carol, and "Does Daryl want to play?"

"I doubt that very much."

"Well, try to persuade him. Because the second team is short a player."

" _Flag_?" Daryl grumbles at dinner that night. "Flag is for pussies."

"I'll take that for a no. Or are you just afraid of being bested by Henry?  _He's_  playing."

That gets a rise out of Daryl, and, by the end of dinner, he's agreed to join the game.

[*]

"You've done it again!" Carol hears on Thanksgiving day.

"You really know how to pull these big events off."

"I have to admit, this town is a pretty well-run ship."

She's basking in the glow of the praise, and feeling confident she's going to beat Roderick in the January election, when the football game unwinds. Resting a hand on her full belly, she settles on a camp chair on the sideline to watch Herhsey play the junior flag football game. The poor confused boy doesn't seem to know what he's doing, but he sure can run, and when he catches the ball, he runs all the way to the end zone – of the  _opponent_. The whole time, Henry is running up the sidelines, shouting, "Other way! Other way!" while Daryl just stands and shakes his head. There's a confused mixture of cheering and laughing when Hershey makes his "goal."

Next the adult game unravels, though there is one kid as young as fourteen playing. Because it's flag, it's co-ed, and Rosita and Tara have already begun trash talking each other from opposite sides.

Henry plays quarterback, and Daryl is some kind of offensive lineman or something. Carol doesn't know the positions. She does notice that Henry keeps glancing at the sidelines between plays to see if Cyndie is watching him.

Daryl plays better than she expected, though he has a number of personal fouls called on him. It seems he sometimes confuses the flag rules with tackle. But he doesn't get ejected from the game, and Carol finds her eyes drawn to him again and again, especially after he heats up and sheds his outer shirt, and the muscles of his bare arms ripple in the late afternoon sun. She's horny as hell by the time they get back home, but she has to wait until Hershey is in bed to jump her husband.

Later, when she and Daryl are curled naked in bed beneath two blankets before the gently burning fire, she says, "I didn't know you could play football so well."

"Played in school. Offensive tackle."

She rolls over to face him. "Are you  _serious_?"

"Why so surprised?"

"Because…didn't you drop out of high school?"

"Played 'n junior high. 'N my freshman year of high school."

"I just can't imagine you on a  _team_."

"Merle – all two seconds he was home 'tween juvie 'n the army - told me if I got on the football team, I'd get laid. So I got on the football team."

"And did you get laid?"

He grins. "Got laid tonight, didn't I?"

She chuckles and kisses his nose. "I love you, Daryl. And I'm thankful for you."

"Thank God for ya every damn day," Daryl replies. "'N I don't even believe in God." He rolls on his back and pats his chest.

Carol settles in, and the sure, steady rhythm of his heart sings her to sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

"The DL for declaring candidacy – "

"- The DL?" Tara interrupts Eugene.

The Council is seated around the circular table in the study of the historic mansion, with the fireplace burning and the great double oak doors closed.

"Deadline."

"I thought DL meant down low," Jesus says.

"It's hard to keep up with his acronyms," Enid agrees.

"The point is," Aaron brings the conversation back on topic, "the deadline for declaring candidacy is tomorrow. That gives the candidates a full six weeks to make their cases to the people before the election in January. And so far," he tips his hand toward Carol across from him, "only Carol and Roderick have declared for the mayor's position. And only Tara and I have submitted our paperwork to run for Council again. Jesus, I didn't even see a statement of intent to run from you." He flips through the papers on the clipboard before him.

"That's because I'm not running again."

"What?" Aaron asks.

"At least one of us has to be home more for Gracie. And you're probably going to be Council Chairman again."

"Can we discuss this later?" Aaron asks.

"There's nothing to discuss. I'm not running again."

"We'll discuss it later," Aaron insists, and the other Council members shift uncomfortably in their chairs.

"I'm stepping down, too," Enid says. "Siddiq wants to run, and if he does, and he wins, I'll probably need to take on more responsibility at the clinic. I may even end up Director of Health."

"I'm joining the aforementioned Exodus myself," Eugene announces. "At this juncture, I would prefer to serve as Director of Energy, now that I have thoroughly educated myself on a variety of alternative sources of power and our current director is expecting offspring."

"This is going to be a huge turnover," Carol says. "Has anyone else put their name in for the Council? Other than Aaron, Tara, and Siddiq?"

Aaron glances down at his clipboard. He lifts three pages. "Father Gabriel."

"I suppose he figures that's one way to get his balcony," Carol says with a smile. "Anyone else?"

"Cyndie," Aaron says.

"Well Oceanside didn't take any time in acclimating," Eugene observes.

"That's it?" Carol asks. "So we already know who our Council is going to be?"

"Unless someone else puts in before tomorrow's deadline," Aaron says.

"Well, at least we'll have a full Council. Next order of business?"

Aaron takes a sheet off the clipboard and sets it in the center of the circular table. "Application for immigration and permanent residence."

Carol moves it toward herself, but instead of reading it, she asks. "Who is this man? And why does he want to settle here?"

"His name's Dale," Aaron answers, and Carol is struck with an unexpected pang as she recalls the old quarry camp for the first time in years. She and Daryl are the only two survivors from those days. "He's one of the Kingdom's gardeners," Aaron continues. "He's going to cohabitate with Beatrice."

"I thought she was a lesbian," Tara says in surprise.

"No," Aaron says. "The King is offering to send two crates of fresh vegetables with him for admission."

"Four crates," Carol says.

"We could use another gardener," Aaron tells her. "Someone who knows his way around a greenhouses for the coming winter. We have a lot of framers, but Dale has skill in this particular area. And housing isn't a problem. He'll just move into Beatrice's trailer. I say we accept the offer."

"We can't lower the immigration fees just because we like his skills," Carol insists.

"Why not?" Tara asks. "Why should the fees be the same regardless of skill level?"

"The price of admission is low to begin with," Carol reasons. "The last person we sent permanently to the Kingdom, we sent with two deer's worth of sausage and jerky. The Kingdom can pay tit for tat."

"All in favor of reducing the price of admission?" Aaron asks. Only he and Tara raise their hands. "Then it stays at four creates. All in favor of approving the application at a price of four crates of vegetable for admission?"

All five hands go up on the Council. Carol doesn't vote, though she does have veto power – she can throw anything back to the Council, who must then secure a unanimous vote to override her veto. "I'll write the King tonight," Carol says. "And tell him we'll grant the application if he increases the fee to four crates."

After the Council meeting, Carol exits the mansion to find Judith and R.C. playing jacks with Hershey on the cement porch. "Hey," she says. "When did you get here?"

"An hour ago," Judith answers in that easy tone of self-confidence she's developed lately. The girl slams the ball on the porch and the jacks go flying up. Hershey steps back as Judith's hand shoots out and flits back and forth to catch three before the rest can fall to the ground.

"Auntie Carol?" Hershey asks as Judith hands him the ball. "When can I get my own gun like Judith?"

"When you're ten like Judith," Carol tells him. "If you pass the range test."

"But Judith had hers when she was eight!"

"Not happening," Carol tells him. "Where's your mother, kids?"

"Stabling the horses," R.C. tells her.

Carol finds Michonne feeding her stallion a sugar cube from the open palm of her hand. Her katana rises above her shoulder blades, peeking out behind her long dreads like an old, familiar friend. Michonne hangs her saddle over the door of the stall and then turns to greet Carol.

"What brings you here?" Carol asks.

"Two of the solar batteries Daryl traded us for penicillin turned out not to work. I've been sent to get replacements. Well, I volunteered. R.C. wanted to play with Hershey and Judith …"

"She wanted to play with Daryl?" Carol asks.

Michonne smiles and nods. "And Ezekiel wanted me to extend you a personal invitation to the Christmas play since apparently he hasn't received a response about how many people are coming."

"What play?"

"I told him he shouldn't have trusted Daryl to relay the message." As they walk together outside of the stables, Michonne tells him about the Kingdom's production of _A Christmas Carol_. "Just write him and let him know how many are coming. And I hope you're among them. I think he most wants to see you. It's been almost two years." Ezekiel came to the Hilltop for her inauguration, but he otherwise rarely leaves the Kingdom. Carol understands why – she's just as bound by duty at the Hilltop. Michonne waves toward one of the picnic tables they're passing. "I also came because I wanted to talk to you about something."

Carol follows her beneath the pavilion and sits on the hard, cold, wooden bench across the table from her. "Anything you ask of me, you know I'll have to run by the Town Council."

"Not this you won't," Michonne assures her. "This is personal." She looks at her fingertips resting on the surface of the picnic table. "How would feel if I started dating Ezekiel?"

Carol smiles. "I guess Henry's read on the situation was right."

"What do you mean?"

"He said Ezekiel shaved when you mentioned you two looked like brother and sister."

Michonne smirks. "He did. He looks good, though. Ten years younger, and yet it makes him look leaner and meaner for some reason, too. But that wasn't my first hint of his interest. He's been making subtle moves for almost six months now. I've been pretending I don't notice, but I'm starting to think of responding. Would it bother you?"

"No," Carol says. "Why would it bother me?"

"You two were engaged."

"I was the one who ended it," Carol reminds her.

"I know, but, there's an unspoken rule between friends. No exes."

"I appreciate the consult," Carol tells her. "But really, I'm more than fine with it. I think it would be great for you. It's been a long time."

Michonne swallows hard and nods solemnly. "I was planning just to be a widow for life, like Maggie was. But my life has already gone on years longer than I ever anticipated it would in this world. And now it looks like I might die an old lady. And Ezekiel…" She shrugs. "I have to admit…he can be charming."

Carol peers at her curiously. "You didn't really think I'd have a problem with it, did you?"

"No. But you're my oldest female friend in this world, Carol. And I wanted to pay you the courtesy."

Carol's touched by the gesture, and struck by the truth of Michonne's statement. She's known Michonne longer than anyone else in this world besides Daryl. There's a strange, tangled feeling in her stomach. Some of it is sadness – all these reminders of loss – but the sadness is mixed with joy. That life in the prison seems so very far away now. She'd hoped, in vain, for a settled life back then. But even then, she'd never imagined what this broken, lawless world could become, how it might grow, or how central a place she might find in it, with Daryl not only still by her side, but in her bed.

[*]

Carol offers to put Michonne and Judith up in Henry's old room for the night. R.C. will camp out on Hershey's floor, which probably means the boys will get no sleep and Hershey will doze off in school tomorrow, but it's rare he gets to see his little friend.  For now, the kids are playing outside, Daryl has not returned from the hunt, and Carol is chopping up squash on a wooden cutting board on her kitchen counter in preparation for dinner. Michonne meanwhile sets the table for six.

"So," Michonne asks as she places the glasses on the table. "What's he like in bed?"

"Daryl?" Carol slides the chopped veggies into the pot that is boiling on the woods stove.

"No. Ezekiel."

"Oh. Yeah, no. Maybe we shouldn't compare notes on that."

"I don't have any notes to compare. I just don't want any surprises."

"Well, don't worry. With Ezekiel, you won't get any."

The last glass hovers in mid-air for a moment before Michonne sets it down. "That bad?"

"No! No, I shouldn't have said that. Ezekiel and I just didn't have any chemistry. But that doesn't it mean you two won't. I mean, you practically hated each other in the War with the Whispers."

Michonne and the King had a lot of heated disagreements about strategy. Michonne was sure her plan would lead to the destruction of the Whispers, and Ezekiel was sure her plan would lead to the destruction of Alexandria. Both turned out to be right. But for all their disagreements, Ezekiel valued Michonne's skill enough to make her Knight Commander almost immediately upon her settlement in the Kingdom.

Michonne puts a hand on her hip. "And that's a good thing?"

Carol smiles, "Well, it means there's already been sparks flying between you."

Michonne chuckles.

"Ezekiel and I, we respected each other. And we were fond of each other. But we weren't passionate about each other. It's different with Daryl. It's…intense. Emotionally."

"Like it was with me and Rick," Michonne says sadly. She shuffles one of the place settings into a straighter line, as though she just needs to busy herself.

"It's been years," Carol says quietly.

"I know." She stops messing with the place settings and rests a hand on the back of a wooden chair. "You know, Ezekiel's not corny with me the way he was with you. I mean, he's a gentleman. As always. And he does love his Shakespeare. But he's not _corny_."

Carol told Daryl that after Ed, corny was good, and it was, at the time. She wanted to be treated like a queen for once in her life. It felt good to be respectfully and consistently wooed like that, to be courted as slowly as she wanted.

Daryl doesn't treat her like a queen. He doesn't put her up on a pedestal. He calls her on her bullshit. He sees straight into her like an x-ray beam. Ezekiel loved the best parts of her, but he never knew the worst parts of her. Daryl knows them all. Every weakness, every wound, every resentment, every fear, every flaw. And he loves her anyway. Maybe he even loves her more because of all those wounds.

It was a year after the break-up before Carol realized that Ezekiel was corny precisely because he didn't want to get to know her too well. He wanted the fantasy as much as she did.

"That's a good sign," Carol says.

Michonne studies her like she's not quite sure how to interpret those words. "Maybe so. I still miss Rick. Every day. I'm not looking for that kind of love again, but I'd like to have some fun. Some companionship. Hell, an orgasm I don't have to induce myself!"

Carol snorts.

Michonne shrugs. "Maybe it will grow into something more. Maybe it won't. But in the meantime, I think I just want to be romanced a little bit."

"Well if you just want to be romanced, there's no better man to do it."

"Did you know he used to be in an R&B band in college?"

"Ezekiel?" Carol asks. "No." She shakes her head in disbelief. "He never mentioned that to me."

"I found a saxophone in a storage closet in the old band hall. I think I'm going to polish it up, get it in shape and then give it to him for his birthday in two weeks. Who knows, I might even get a serenade."

The barking of Merle is the first clue that Daryl is home. Judith's squeal of "Uncle Daryl!" is the second.

He must linger outside with the kids for a while, because the door doesn't open until Carol already has the soup finished and on the table. She takes one look at Daryl and says, "Go wash up before dinner."

"Was gonna," he mutters. He nods to Michonne, says, "Good to see ya," and turns and heads out to the hand pump.

[*]

"Chick town?" Michonne asks as she curls her bare feet underneath herself on one end of the couch. "Are you  _shitting_  me?"

"I wish I was," Carol says from the other end of the couch, where she sips her tequila.

"Well, you've got to shut that nonsense down!" Michonne insists. She raises her glass in Carol's direction, and the clear liquid sloshes up. "Win by a landslide!"

The door to Hershey's room, which he's sharing with R.C., creaks open. Daryl steps out and shuts it behind him. "I told 'em to quiet down," he reports. "Goin' to bed." He pauses on the wood floor outside their bedroom. "Ya comin'?"

Carol knows what that means. He wants sex. "Michonne's leaving in the morning," she reminds him. "And I didn't get to see her two weeks ago."

"Mhmhm. Well, 'nite." Daryl slips behind the door.

Michonne chuckles. "Am I keeping you from your wifely duties?"

"He's getting spoiled," Carol says, and they both laugh, and for a moment she's reminded of the early days at the quarry, when she and Andrea and Amy and Jacqui were laughing over the things they missed, before Ed ruined it.

She had friends before Ed, but in this world...Michonne is the closest female friend she has. In the peace between the War with the Saviors and the War with the Whisperers, they finally began to really talk to each other for the first time. They bonded over their shared experience of their lost children Andre and Sophia, and over their shared experience of their adopted children Judith and Henry. Carol harbored some quiet jealousy that Michonne had been able to have another child of her own, but she also rejoiced in her friend's happiness.

"I'm so glad you came to visit," Carol says.

"I am, too." The boys begin to murmur behind the closed door again. There are two giggles, and then a snort, and then a  _shhhhh!_ "So is R.C. And Judith had a great time shooting and knife throwing with Daryl after dinner. He must have worn her out. I can't believe she's already asleep." She raises her glass. "I should visit more often. Especially if I get booze like this!"

"Daryl says it was almost full when he found it."

"I promise not to drink it all," Michonne assures her. She takes another sip, which empties her glass, and Carol refills her. "Does Ezekiel quote Shakespeare in bed?"

"I told you," Carol points her glass at Michonne. "We are  _not_  comparing notes."

"What does  _Daryl_  say in bed? Anything? Or does he just grunt?"

Carol laughs.

"He talks dirty, doesn't he?"

"I'm not telling. But…" Carol smiles. "You might be surprised."

Michonne's eyes widen. "Sweet nothings? I knew it! It's always the ones you least suspect."

Carol laughs again. By the time they're done talking, the tequila bottle is about half empty, which means they've only had a few drinks each, but she's not used to drinking. It takes her two tries to turn the knob of the bedroom door, and she's uneasy on her feet when she enters.

She finds Daryl standing in his worn black boxers and muscle shirt and poking the fire to get it to burn better. She giggles, runs into the bed, and cries, "Ow!"

Daryl smiles – that smile she loves – closed lip, almost unnoticeable, but like a neon sign to her. "Ya liquored up?"

"I had a few."

"Mhmhm? Ya loose?"

"Why?" she asks as she turns down the quilt. "Do you intend to take advantage of me?"

"Ain't like I'd fight ya if you decided to throw yourself on me."

"I'm not sure I'm in a position to throw myself anywhere but in this bed." She climbs in and, feeling her head buzzing, rolls onto her back. "Ezekiel and Michonne are going to start dating."

"Zeke n' 'Chonne?" Daryl asks in disbelief.

"Why do you sound so surprised? Henry and I  _told_  you he had the hots for her."

Hershey and R.C.'s voices rise and fall in the bedroom next door, punctured by a boyish cackle.

"'S ridiculous."

"I thought you'd be happy. Now you can finally rest easy that he's not trying to get back together with  _me_."

Daryl seems to consider that. He pokes the log. It rolls and the flames crackle, so he puts the iron back in the stand. He throws himself sideways on the bed, which shifts beneath his weight, and the room begins to spin a bit. Daryl puts a hand on the quilt at her waist and begins to tug it down.

Carol puts her hand over his and pulls the quilt back up. "Not tonight. The boys are still awake. They'll hear."

"Ya know how to be a good, quiet girl." He tugs at the quilt underneath her restraining hand, but she holds it still.

"Not tonight," she repeats. "I need to sleep. I have to work tomorrow."

"We both have to work every damn day, sweetheart."

"I drank too much." She rolls on her side, away from him. "Maybe tomorrow."

"A'ight. Love ya."

She thinks she says she's loves him too, but she's not sure, because sleep so quickly overtakes her.

[*]

A few days after Michonne returns to the Kingdom, Carol has to deal with an unexpected disruption. John Markwood, who upon Daryl's advice has refrained from acting on his notion to cheat on his wife, learns instead that his wife has been cheating on  _him_. All those late-night meetings Julie's been having with her Assistant Director of Education have involved more than curriculum planning.

John seeks out the other man, kicks in his trailer door, and drags him down onto the earth below. John gives his wife's lover two black eyes, breaks his nose, and then proceeds to enter his trailer. With the butt of his shotgun, John busts every single window, and with his gutting knife, he tears up the sheets and guts the mattress. He then kicks in the lower kitchen cabinets and storage cabinets with his steel-tipped boots, splintering the weak wood in dozens of pieces.

Carol and the Council have to deal with the resulting assault and vandalism charges, as well as Julie's immediate application for divorce and division of property. It's an unusual case, and not one they've encountered before. There's only been one previous divorce, and it was as amicable as a divorce could be - the division of property was decided by mutual consent, and the Council was not required to rule.

They deliberate for a long time and reluctantly decide to kill two birds with one stone - John's punishment for destroying the trailer and assaulting Julie's lover will be the loss of his own cabin, which also settles the major property division question. The cabin will be given to Julie, and John will have to find other lodging.

Within two hours of the ruling, Carol hears the resulting grumbling around town:

"John should have kept the cabin. He helped  _build_  it."

"That man screwed John's  _wife_. And now he's sleeping under John's roof!"

"Leave it to a  _female_ mayor to punish a man for defending his honor."

"The  _scandal_  in this administration! They've got directors sleeping with deputy directors!"

"I tell you what. If this wasn't  _chick town_ , if we had a little more testosterone in those Council chambers…"

"We've got a woman for mayor, and two women and two gay men on the Council. And  _Eugene_. Does anyone in those Council Chambers have any balls at all?"

So Carol's in a pretty foul mood already when she comes home that evening and finds John in her living room with Daryl and Hershey. John is cleaning his rifle on her coffee table, while his dog Daisy lies quiet and pregnant before the fireplace and Hershey attempts to keep Merle from bothering her by distracting him with a chew rope.

"Hello, John," Carol says as calmly as possible. She looks at the open door to Henry's old bedroom and sees two fully stuffed hiking packs on the floor, a large cardboard box, and an array of extra weapons lying on the bed. "Are those your things in the bedroom?"

"'S movin' into Henry's old room," Daryl mutters as he finishes attaching a replacement limb to one of his crossbows.

"Daryl," Carol says coolly, "may I speak to you privately for a moment? Outside?"

Daryl stands, puts his crossbow in his armchair, and drops his tool into the pocket of his cargo pants. He seems confused by the request, but not concerned. He follows her onto the front porch, and she closes the door behind him.

Carol leans back against the railing to face him. "You can't just invite a man to _live_ with us without consulting me first!"

Daryl _pfts_. "He asked. Hell ya expect me to do? He ain't got nowhere else to go. Y'all took his cabin 'n gave it to his wife's n' 'er lover."

"So you disagree with the Council's decision, too?"

Daryl crosses his arms over his chest and doesn't respond.

"They both owned the cabin. But John trashed that man's trailer, and it's  _uninhabitable_  now. So the Council decided a house for a house. It wasn't even my ruling. I don't get to make those rulings."

"Could of vetoed it. Sent it back down."

"It was already four to one. They probably would have overridden my veto with a unanimous vote. And I'm not sure I disagree with their decision."

"That man fucked his  _wife_ ," Daryl says, his voice rising a little higher than Carol's comfortable with. He must see that in her face, because he lowers it. "I'd of done the same damn thing. Hell, be a miracle if I didn't  _kill_  'em."

"You didn't fight back when Ezekiel hit you," she reminds him.

"'Cause in that case,  _I_  was the other man."

"Oh." He has a point there, although it was not as if they'd been cheating. They kissed there in her dressing room, the morning of the wedding, for the first time ever, after he begged her not to marry the king.

"I deserved worse than he gave me," Daryl says. "Felt like shit for stealin' his woman. He ain't deserved it. Zeke never did nothin' but love ya. But there wasn't no help for it. I 'couldn't let ya…" He lowers his voice almost to a whisper. "Couldn't let ya go like that."

"You know John was toying with the idea of cheating already."

"Yeah." His voice is back to normal again. "Cause she was fuckin' someone else."

"He didn't know that. So let's just say that marriage wasn't in a solid place on either end." She sighs. "Daryl, I'm  _mayor_. I can't be seen to be taking sides. If we take him in – "

"- Maybe ya  _want_  to be seen to be takin' sides. 'Cause a lot of people ain't too happy with the Council's decision."

"I know. I've heard the talk. But if we take him in, then people are going to say I'm a hypocrite for letting the Council do one thing and then turning around and - "

"- Where's he supposed to  _go_?"

"He can fix up the trailer he destroyed," Carol suggests. "He can live in that."

"That'll take a long while. 'S my  _friend_ , Carol. He Just lost his wife. Lost his cabin. Ain't got nothin' or no one. 'M puttin' my foot down on this one."

"You're  _putting_   _your foot down_?" Carol asks.

Daryl rubs a hand across his goatee. "Yeah. M' foot. M' puttin' it  _down_."

She laughs.

"Ain't funny," he growls.

"It is. It's a little bit funny, Pookie."

"'N don't call me  _that_  'round John."

"Oh. No. I wouldn't want to sully your reputation with the trailer trasher."

Daryl glowers so darkly that she suddenly thinks better of teasing him. She can get away saying things to Daryl no one else in the world can, but she knows he has lines even with her.

"'S my  _friend_ ," Daryl repeats.

Daryl doesn't use that word often. As far as Carol knows, Aaron and Tara are the only two other people at the Hilltop Daryl refers to that way. But he's been hunting on and off with John for almost seven years now. Carol doesn't understand their friendship, because she doesn't share it, and John is not her favorite person in the world. But extending this offer of help him is clearly important to Daryl. "Fine," she agrees. "He can stay with us.  _Temporarily_. Until the trailer is fixed. But would you consult me next time before you invite someone to move into  _our_  house?"

"Mhmhm. Yeah. Sorry. Should of."

Carol's still a little bit irritated when she goes inside, throws up the roll top on her desk, and sits down to work.

"Thank you for your hospitality, Carol," John tells her in his smooth southern Virginian accent. "And just so you know, I don't hold the Council's ruling against you, even if you  _could have_  exercised your veto."

"John, I'm in no mood," Carol says, and she doesn't hear another word out of him for the rest of the evening.

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

Carol slides the arrowhead necklace Daryl gave her over her head and lets it pool on the nightstand on her side of the bed while he unclicks all the weapons from his belt and lays them on his nightstand. He drops his pants to reveal a pair of frayed, faded black boxers that look almost gray.    As Carol dresses for bed, Daryl unbuttons his outer shirt and tosses it crumpled on his nightstand, and then he starts the fire. She turns down the quilt and looks at him on his haunches as he painstakingly struggles to make the logs catch. He split that wood early in the morning, before hunting.

"Thank you," she says softly, in part because she's grateful for all the little things he does to protect and provide, but also because she feels bad about their fight today. Every time they fight, her stomach curls into a twisted knot that takes a few hours to unravel. "I appreciate all the things you do for your family. Making sure the cabin is locked up at night. Walking on the worst side of the road when we're out together. The hunting. The scavenging. The firewood. The fire. All of it."

The fire catches, and he stands and takes the iron poker and looks at her skeptically. "So ya ain't mad at me no more?" Daryl pokes the fire.

"Are  _you_  still mad at  _me_?" she asks, because he's poking that fire a little aggressively.

"Just think ya should of vetoed the ruling. Sent it back to Council. John helped build that cabin with his own damn hands. For her. Like I did this one for you."

"We can't just allow vigilantism without any consequences. We're trying to maintain order here. He destroyed that trailer and seriously battered that man. Some price had to be paid, and Julie had as much right to that cabin as he did. She's maintained it. They've both lived in it for five years."

"Carol, tonight, some man is fuckin' his wife under the roof  _he_  built." He clangs the iron poker back into the stand. "Least y'all didn't take his  _dog_ f rom 'em."

"The Council did what it thought was best. It wasn't an easy decision. And I can't veto it now. Even if I had, only one Councilmen would have had to change a vote to override me."

"Who voted against?"

"You know I can't tell you that," she says as she slides into bed.

"Tara."

Carol sits up straight against the headboard, her eyes widening in surprise at his accurate guess. "How..."

"Tara told me that once in the old world, this girl broke up with 'er right after she convinced Tara to co-sign a car loan for 'er. Tara keyed that bitch's car good." He's standing at the edge of the bed now.

"When Sophia was three," Carol says quietly, "Ed and I took her to this local fair. I was talking to the ice cream man, and he said something funny, and I laughed, and he said something about my laughing eyes, and…then…next thing I know…Ed's shoving the ice cream cart into the man's stomach. And then Ed's punching the guy. Right in front of Sophia. Violent jealousy…I've seen more than my fair share of it."

Daryl's thumb goes straight to his mouth and he gnaws on his nail it in silence for a moment before dropping it. "Didn't think 'bout that." He climbs into bed next to her and leans back against the headboard, too. He puts a hand down near – but not over – hers on the bed.

"After a while, I just stopped making eye contact with other men." Carol reaches out her hand and settles it on top of his. He spreads his fingers so she can lace hers through. "We're coming from different perspectives on this. And we have different opinions. And that's okay. I did what I thought was appropriate. I have to pay the price of not using my veto, whatever that price may be. If that means losing Forestry…" She sighs. That's a lot of votes. There are twenty-eight hunters and fishermen, total, though some are only part-time.

"Yer the best choice for mayor," he assures her, which is not the same as saying she'll win.

"I hate that I have to think of everything in a political light now. Take this Christmas play Ezekiel has invited us to. I really want to go see it. But I have to think – are people going to think I'm neglecting my duties if I go? That I'm taking an indulgent vacation? And if I  _don't_  go, are they going to think I've lost my contacts and influence with the Kingdom? Because I know Roderick and his family are going."

"Then screw politics! Go 'cause ya wanna!"

"It  _would_  be a nice family vacation for us."

"Us?"

"You, me, Hershey, and Henry. Henry said he'd come."

"I ain't goin' to see no dumbass play."

" _Judith's_  going to be in it. You don't want to see your niece in her first play?"

"Zeke don't want to see us  _together_."

They've both been to the Kingdom repeatedly since Carol jilted Ezekiel on their wedding day, but never at the same time. Ezekiel's only been to the Hilltop once.

"Daryl, I assure you, he's over that. He's dating Michonne now. And she's not the first woman he's dated since we broke it off."

"His wound might be scabbed over, but ain't no sense pickin' at it. I ain't gonna throw us in his face."

"Well, we don't have to make out under the mistletoe or dry hump on the Kingdom's gazebo. But it would be a nice family time. Cyndie could cover for you here. Get a little experience stepping into your shoes for a few days. She didn't sign up to go. And Aaron already said he'll cover for me if I choose to go. It's  _Judith_ , Daryl. Playing Tiny Tim. Or Tina, in this case."

"Fine," he mutters. "But yer gonna have to keep me awake durin' the damn play."

[*]

The next day, there are whispers throughout the town. Some say Carol is compassionate for taking in John, others that she's a hypocrite, and still others whisper that there's a rift between the mayor and the Council on the matter, and that Carol wanted to use her veto power but simply wasn't strong enough to withstand the Council.

None of the gossip reflects the very careful deliberation that went on in those Council chambers, the long discussion on vigilantism, the reticence with which the 4-1 decision was made by the Council, and the equal reticence with which Carol let it stand.

Late that afternoon, when Carol gets back to the cabin, she follows a trail of mud to John's boots, which are lying haphazardly on their side in front of the couch. His black Stetson hat sits randomly on her desk, on top of her files. She takes the hat and tosses it onto his borrowed bed in Henry's old room.

She finds the men are on the back porch, smoking and laughing. "Where's Hershey?"

"Over at Gracie's place," Daryl mutters. "Jesus'll walk 'em back by dinner."

She closes the door, and they don't come in until she calls them in for dinner.

[*]

The following morning, at the Council meeting, Tara says, "I think the Council needs to consider replacing the Director of Education. Julie Markwood appointed her own lover as deputy director without disclosing the relationship."

Carol's already angered John's friends, and now if this resolution passes, she's going to piss off Julie's friends, too. She knows this, but part of her agrees with Tara that the Council can't have cabinet members it can't trust.

"It's also created some scandal," Aaron says, "and the Council has to be seen as acting. So I second the motion. All in favor?"

All five council members' hands go up, which pretty much leaves the matter out of Carol's hands. She could veto it, but all they have to do is stick to their vote. Not that she won't be blamed for it, anyway.

"I say we appoint Barbara," Tara says. "She has three adopted kids in the school. She tutors a lot of the kids, and she always babysitting."

"She knows all of the Hilltop's offspring," Eugene agrees. "She's been an indesbensible help with my own Eugene, Junior."

"But then she won't have time to always be babysitting," Aaron says.

"Well, you and I won't need a babysitter when I step down form the Council," Jesus reminds him. "I'm going to have more time for Gracie."

Aaron gives him a peeved look. He's obviously not happy with Jesus's decision not to run, but he asks, "All in favor of appointing Barbara as the new Director of Education?"

All five hands go up, and Carol signs off on the appointment after Aaron writes it up.

Carol goes to the school house during the recess hour to deliver the bad news to Julie as she watches the kids play in the courtyard. The worst part of being mayor is being the bearer of bad tidings.

"Was that  _really_  necessary?" Julie asks. "I think I've been doing a good job here, and I'm not sure what my private life has to do with it."

"You appointed him as your deputy, Julie. You withheld information from the Council about your relationship. If we bend the rules for you, we have to bend them for everyone. You can continue on as a teacher, and this doesn't completely rule out the possibility of future director appointments."

"I thought you were on  _my_  side."

"I'm not on  _anyone's_  side. I'm trying to what's best for the Hilltop." But sometimes, Carol doesn't even know what that  _is_.

She's feeling pretty down when she returns to the Council Chambers and finds Henry there with lunch set out on her desk. "I've heard you're having a hard time of it," he says. "So I thought I'd eat with you today. Whipped up a little something from my own rations."

She smiles and takes a seat across from him at the great desk to eat. He's prepared a snack plate of cured meats from wild game, goat cheese, and fruit, and there are several walnuts in a bowl. Two tin cups full of cool tea rest on the desk. "You didn't go on the hunt this morning?" she asks.

"I'm going fishing with Cyndie later instead. She's training me. I thought it would be good to learn a new skill."

"Mhmh. I'm sure you did." Carol smiles slightly, and he flushes.

"But we can't go until the afternoon, when it warms a little, or the fish will be down too deep. And she says in a few weeks, we won't be able to catch much at all."

"If you're interested in Cyndie, Henry, you know you have to end it with Jessica when we go to the play next weekend."

His blush deepens.

"Trust me, Cyndie isn't going to want to date a man who's seeing someone else."

"Cyndie isn't going to want to date me period." Henry cracks open a walnut with a silver nutcracker but uses the tip of his pocket knife to pick out the pieces. "She's way out of my league. And Daryl said a bird in hand is worth two in the bush."

Carol pushes her cup aside. "Daryl told you to hold on to Jessica?"

"No, it's just a phrase he uses sometimes when we're hunting. I'm not saying I'm marrying Jessica tomorrow, but...Look, Mom, I'm just being practical." The mom comes out naturally, like he isn't even thinking about it anymore. "In all of the known world, there are maybe six women between the ages of eighteen and thirty who don't  _already_  have a husband or boyfriend. Or  _girlfriend_. And most of them like older men. I can't be chasing a dream."

"You used to be so idealistic and romantic."

"And you used to try to make me more practical! Now that I finally am,  _now_  you don't want me to be?"

"Henry…Your idealism has always worried me, because it's made you do brash things. But it's also been a beautiful part of you. The world needs dreamers, too. You just have to… _balance_  it. The practical and the pursuit of the ideal."

The shell of the walnut Henry holds between the metal prongs of the nutcracker shatters. "I'll take that under advisement."

Carol hopes he will.

[*]

Carol concentrates on planning for the winter. Whether or not she's re-elected as mayor come January, they'll need a winter survival plan in place, as always. She's working on a plan to propose to the Council tonight at her rolltop desk when Daryl goes to tuck-in Herhsey.

John is sitting with his stocking feet up on the coffee table and reading a hardback book that Carol assumes is a gun or hunting manual of some kind. When Daryl returns, as though she's not even in the room, John asks, "Carol makes  _you_  put the boy to bed?"

Carol's fingers tense around her pencil, but she says nothing.

"She don't make me do shit," Daryl replies as he slumps into his arm chair. "I just wanna."

It's quiet for maybe three minutes before John starts talking to Daryl as though he's picking up the thread of an earlier conversation they had in the woods. "I see why you appointed her now."

"Cyndie?" Daryl asks.

"You figured you needed to balance it out with a fisherman instead of a hunter. And she does have those younger men wrapped around her pretty little finger. They'll do any old chore now, as long as she's the one asking it. And I bet she writes up all your paperwork in neat cursive."

Carol is gripping her pencil so tightly now that she's afraid it might snap. She wants to say something badly, but she doesn't.

Daryl does. "Yeah, 'n she could drill hole in yer head 'fore ya even saw her comin'."

Her back to the men, Carol smiles slightly.

"You think Cyndie could get the drop on  _me_?" John asks skeptically.

"Hell, I know it."

John laughs. "If you say so. You are a good judge of skill, I will give you that. You know, she shot my boy Jacob down. Of course I can't blame her. Jacob's a scrawny fellow. Julie tried to fatten him up for years, but it just never took. And then the collapse came, and well…"

Carol turns in her chair. "John," she asks. "Would you mind taking off your boots at the door from now on? You tracked mud all the way to the couch again."

John glances at his boots, which stand at the side of the couch. "Yes, ma'am. Sorry. I suppose I didn't think about it. It's just…Julie swept up the whole cabin every evening." He opens the book he's temporarily closed to a dog-eared page. "I suppose that might have made the job harder for her, now that I think about it." He begins reading.

It's a quiet again for another ten minutes, but when John starts talking to Daryl again, Carol puts her work on a clipboard and takes it to the bedroom.

[*]

A day passes. The hunting dogs sleep by the fireplace, and Hershey has passed out there, too, wedged between the two animals, with his little arm slung around Merle. Carol is at her corner desk. She's just written Ezekiel to tell him the number of Hilltop townspeople who will be attending the play, and now she's reviewing the six pages of December rations the Council prepared. She's trying to verify the numbers, but John, who sits on the couch, just keeps prattling on to Daryl, first about rifle scopes and then about deer tracks and then about bait, and she keeps having to recount and rethink.

There have been times when she wished Daryl talked more, but she realizes now she's gotten used to quiet evenings, with nothing but the sound of the fireplace crackling and Daryl whittling arrows, fiddling with his bow, cleaning knives, or even just quietly staring into the flames while she works at her desk.

Carol's amazed John doesn't seem to be grating on Daryl's last nerve, but maybe Daryl was used to Merle talking all the time. She recalls some nights in the quarry camp when the deep murmur of Merle's voice would drift from their tent to hers, punctured only by Daryl's occasional monosyllabic response. That's about what's happening now.

"My bitch will be out of commission as a hunting dog for some time after she gives birth," John says.

"Mhm," Daryl murmurs as he slides a sharpening stone across the blade of one of his knives.

"But it's going to worthwhile if she has a solid litter," John continues. "I reckon you'll want to give one to Henry and one to Hershey. I'll give Jacob one, of course, and, as for the other one or two, or three well...I'm sure there will be a long line of interested hunters."

"Mhm."

"I remember when Julie had our own litter. By that I mean the triplets. Tiny little things. The biggest was four pounds, one ounce. Now John, Jr. got the disease. Died right at the start of the turn. James died the next year – like a man – putting himself between a herd and his mama. Only Jacob made it through, and he was, let me be frank, the most useless of the lot. But at least he can hunt almost half as good as his old man now."

"Mhm."

"Not as good as your boy, though. You've taught Henry well. Now if you could just teach him to know his  _place_."

"Tried."

"Well, the flip side of that arrogance is ambition. He'll go far, I'm sure, if Jessica doesn't get her snares too deep in him and he doesn't get pilfered by the Kingdom."

Carol wonders why John knows about Jessica. Surely he didn't hear it from Daryl? Maybe he heard it from Henry. Or, more likely, he heard it from his son Jacob, who is Henry's roommate and best friend.

"Julie was  _pissed_  off at me when those triplets were born. They all came out natural. No C-section a'tall. She screamed that I was never gonna to touch her again. Hell, maybe I  _shouldn't_  have. It would have saved me years of misery."

Daryl says nothing at all to that.

"Well, it wasn't all misery," John admits. "We had some great years together. We had our ups and downs. Twenty-one years of ups and downs, and yet she just walks away with another man. Can you believe that?"

"Nah."

"Twenty-one long years. Through thick and thin. Through a goddamn apocalypse! Excuse my French, Carol. And she doesn't even go for a real man like you!"

"What?" Daryl asks.

"I mean you would have at least given me a run for my money when I dragged you out of that trailer. That pansy barely fought back. What is he, twelve years younger than Julie?"

"Dunno."

"He's a  _child_. I wonder if he's ever even been in a fist fight. He crumpled like a rag doll when I hit him."

"John?" Carol asks. She turns slightly in her desk chair. "How are those trailer repairs coming along?"

"I haven't had a chance to start them yet, what with all the winter preparation."

Carol tries not to show her irritation at that revelation. "Well, I'm sure Daryl will be happy to help you start them tomorrow as soon as you get back from the hunt, won't you, dear?"

" _Dear_?" Daryl asks.

"Would you prefer I use a  _different_  endearment?"

Daryl flushes and mutters to John, "Help ya get started tomorruh."

[*]

The next day, the men fix the front door of the trailer that John busted in, replace half of the cabinet doors, and recruit a glazier to cut the correctly sized glass for the windows, which he says he'll have ready in a few days.

That night, Carol awakes at midnight to the sound of masculine laughing and swearing. She wanders with her oil lamp into the kitchen where John and Daryl sit playing poker and drinking the last of the tequila, which hasn't been touched since Michonne's visit.

"Boys," she scolds. "Don't you have to hunt in the morning?"

"Sorry, Carol," John apologizes. "We'll keep it down, and I'll have your man to bed in just a few more minutes."

But they don't keep it down, and it's 2:00 AM when Daryl finally crawls into bed. He smells more like whiskey than tequila and Carol wonders if John pulled out his own bottle when the tequila was gone. Daryl snakes a hand under her shirt and squeezes a breast.

Irritated, she pulls his hand out from under her shirt.

"C'mon," Daryl mutters. "Been awhile."

"It's the middle of the night." She rolls over to face him. "And you're drunk."

He holds up his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "Juzalittle." He grins. "Damn. Yer  _mad_ , ain't ya? Yer cute when yer mad." He slides his hand under her shirt again and squeezes a little more roughly this time.

She slaps his hand away. "You're lucky I don't tell you to go sleep on the couch. But I  _will_  if you stick your hand up my shirt again."

"Oh, 's fine if  _you_  get buzzed with  _yer_  friend, but I do it with mine and it's a goddamn federal case?"

"Shh!" she says, because she doesn't think he realizes how loudly he yelled those last three words. "You'll wake Hershey."

"'S just havin' some fun."

"You need to get some sleep. So do I." Carol rolls away from him again.

She can almost feel Daryl glowering at her back. He rolls over in the other direction, his back an inch away from her, emanating heat. He mutters something under his breath, but she can't make it out.

It's probably a good thing she can't.

[*]

Daryl and John get to the hunt late the next day, and Daryl's back after Herhsey is already in bed. Carol is at work at her desk. "Where's John?" she asks without looking back at him. She's still irritated about last night

"With that redhead from Oceanside. Said he might not be back tonight, if he gets lucky."

"I suppose he could use the ego boost."

Daryl yanks off his boots and plods over to Carol's desk in his stocking feet, with Merle and Daisy both on his heels. Merle joins Daisy on the rug before the fireplace, where the dogs curl up with their backs to each other.

A mason jar clinks on the desk beside her. Carol glances at it. It's filled with creek water and scraggly green growth and a single fall wildflower with a fan of thin white petals and a yellow center. She looks back at the pages before her.

Daryl chews on a toothpick and then points to the jar with its splintered end. "'S called crooked-stem aster."

"I was wondering where that mason jar went," Carol answers.

"Look, 'm sorry."

Carol's eyes are drawn to the flower again. "I didn't think there were any left this close to winter."

"Took me a long time to find one."

She smiles at the thought of him, a man who tracks deer for miles and follows bear signs back to their lairs, searching just as earnestly for a  _flower_. "Daryl, it's not that I mind you having fun with your friend. And I wouldn't mind you drinking. But you know you don't hold your liquor well."

"Don't drink often. Almost never."

"I know. And I guess the truth is…I just miss my time with you. John's always around now."

"Well he ain't 'round at the moment." He jerks his head toward the couch. "So tell me 'bout yer day."

Carol gets up from her desk and follows him over, and they settle side by side. She talks for a while about the various stresses of the day, relates some funny things Hershey said over dinner, and then asks, "How was yours? Did you spend all day looking for that flower, or did you find game, too?"

Daryl stretches an arm out along the back of the couch. "Caught me a live buck for the rabbit farm. Roderick was thrilled. Old one ain't knockin' the does up no more."

"Roderick," she says with a sigh, "the man who will be mayor."

"Nah. Yer gonna kick his ass."

She leans her head against his shoulder. "Do you really believe that? He likely has all but one or two of the farmers locked up, and that's our biggest group of workers. I've got nearly all of defense, thanks to Rosita, and maybe half of energy. But Julie and her friends in education are against me now because we replaced her. The hunters are angry with me because they say I took John's house. Aren't they?"

"They just like to bitch," Daryl says. He lets his arm slide down, and his fingertips alight reassuringly on her shoulder.

She shakes her head. "I'm not winning this thing, am I?" she asks quietly. "I should have listened to Aaron and let him run this time."

"Want me to stump for ya? With the hunters?"

"I can't ask that of you. I know you're not comfortable with that. And, besides, you're my husband. It wouldn't look good."

"Then, hell, I'll make John to do it. Won't come from me."

"John doesn't like me."

"Likes ya just fine." Carol finds that hard to believe, but Daryl  _sounds_  sincere. "If I ask 'em – "

"- I won't ask you to do that. I won't ask you to strain your friendship. I'll talk to him myself."

"A'ight. If that's how ya want it."

She smiles. "Thank you, though. Thank you for being willing."

He leans over and kisses her forehead.

She pats his knee. "Let's go to bed. You can help me take my mind off all this."

"Yeah? Ya sure? Ain't still mad?"

"C'mon," she teases, "It's been awhile."

He doesn't get the joke, because he doesn't remember what he said last night. "Hey," he tells her, "'m always available. Anytime ya want."

Carol laughs. She stands and reaches a hand out to him. He slides his hand into hers, and she helps him up and leads him to bed.


	10. Chapter 10

As a child, Daryl was never good enough. He could never do anything right. His mother didn't beat him, but she criticized him. His father expressed his disapproval with the lash. Daryl used to try to be better, he strove to please them, until he realized pleasing them was impossible.

So he learned instead to feel defensive at all correction. He learned never to apologize. He never  _wanted_  to, until that day at the farm, when Carol asked him not to continue the search for Sophia, and he called her a dumb bitch.

His nerves were pricked like hairs on end when he led Carol to those flowers later, watched her sad eyes studying them, and mustered up the courage to say he was sorry. She forgave him so quickly. She'd forgiven him before he even spoke. She's forgiven him a hundred times since, for a hundred little things. That's how he learned he  _could_  be forgiven, that he  _was_  good  _enough_ , but that he could always become better, that his trying would not be in vain.

He's grateful for the easy way she forgives him now, welcoming him into her arms, into her body. His breath thickens as he moves within her, rocking above her with his palms flat against the mattress so he can watch her when she bites her bottom lip and moans and when her beautiful blue eyes fly open and look into his just before she climaxes, arching her back and digging her nails into his shoulders.

Daryl shuts his eyes fast, lets go of the last thread that binds his restraint, and spills into her with a guttural groan. Her name falls like a liturgy from his lips:  _Carol, Carol, Carol, my sweet Carol, ohhhhh God_.

He's spent and unwound and there's not a thought in his head except love when he collapses to the bed with half his body draped over hers and half off it. Her beating heart echoes his like a natural lullaby, and he drifts.

[*]

Sex puts Daryl to sleep, but it usually gives Carol a second wind. Tonight, it knocked him out much more quickly than usual. His neck is bent, his forehead pressed against her bare shoulder, and his warm, smoky breath falls in even measure on her flesh. She eases out from underneath the weight of the sinewy leg he's draped over hers, and the warmth of his flesh slides from her.

Carol dresses quickly and quietly in a set of flannel pajamas and makes her way out the living room where she pokes the dying fire and feeds it until it flames. Daisy looks up her, whines, and then lowers her head to the bearskin rug. Merle is not with her tonight. He's once again asleep on Hershey's bed, where Daryl has relegated him for as long as Daisy is with them because, Daryl says, "Merle's been stressin' the poor bitch." Daisy needs her rest in pregnancy.

Carol finishes up a few more items of work at her desk, stands, and stretches. That's when she sees John has left his book lying open on the end table, spine cracked, face down, and she goes to close it, because she hates seeing books treated like that. As she closes it, she realizes it's not a gun or hunting manual as she had originally assumed. It's  _Les Miserables_ , by Victor Hugo, and the text is in French.

She's still puzzling over that when she hears the door open, drops the book to the floor, and, having already stripped off her weapons in the bedroom, seizes the nearest sharp object she can find – the firepoker.

John walks through the door, sees her holding the thing like a spear, and raises his hands. "Sorry. Should I have knocked?"

"Probably."

John, with a light smile, lowers his hands. "Didn't want to wake anyone."

Carol returns the poker to its stand. "I thought that door was locked." Daryl usually takes care of locking up the cabin at night, the way he takes care of a dozen little things, but he was probably distracted by her offer of lovemaking.

John closes the door behind himself and locks it. He hangs the strap of his wooden Winchester rifle on the only empty peg on the cabin wall, and then slides off his worn, black Stetson hat. With his hat in his hands, he takes two steps toward the couch, takes one look at her raised eyebrow, freezes, and steps backward again. He hangs the hat over the same peg with his rifle and then yanks off his muddy boots one by one before leaning them against the cabin wall.

"Things didn't go well with the redhead?" asks Carol, secretly a little pleased that the Oceanside woman apparently shot him down.

"A gentleman does not kiss and tell." John walks into the living room, picks his book up from the floor, and sets it on the end table.

"You speak French?" Carol asks as John slides warily onto the couch.

Daisy, who has been awakened by the commotion, pads over to her owner, sits between his legs, and waits for him to start scratching behind her ears. "As a youth, I had the romantic notion that I should one day join the French Foreign Legion," he replies. "So I took four years of French in high school, and in college I set out to major in French literature."

"Really?" Carol's not just surprised that John majored in French. She's surprised he went to college. He has the air of a good ol' boy who loves hunting and firearms and a woman to sweep up after him. All she knows about his employment in the old world was that at some point, he'd been a range safety officer, a firearms instructor, and a hunting guide. "Where did you go to college?"

"The University of Virginia. I had to drop out for financial reasons after two years. I lost my academic scholarship on account of I was distracted from my studies by a beautiful woman. They'd only started letting in women seven years prior to that point, and in retrospect I begin to see the wisdom of the segregation of the sexes in education."

Carol walks to her desk, saying, "Plenty of people managed to get co-ed college educations, John. They just had to prioritize." She pushes the papers inward on the desk before rolling down the top.

"Let me guess where you went college," John replies. "You're from Georgia, so I'm going to say Emory. But then you went on to Yale for your M.B.A."

Carol snorts. "I didn't go to college." She turns and leans back against the desk.

"Surely you jest."

She shakes her head. "I did well enough in high school, but it was made clear to me by my father that women in our family didn't go to college. We had domestic duties. He was a widower, and I took care of him until I got married, and then I took care of my husband. I suppose it was like that in your family?"

"No, ma'am. Both of my sisters graduated from Mary Baldwin College. They didn't lose their scholarships like their foolish younger brother. But at least I got a good woman out of my attendance. I mean…until I lost her." His voice grows quieter. "Julie was so very much in love with me back then. I suppose I chiseled it all away through slow neglect." He coughs, Carol thinks, to mask his feeling, and it occurs to her that maybe Daryl wasn't  _having fun_  with his friend last night. Maybe he was holding John together.

Carol sits down in Daryl's arm chair to indicate she's willing to listen.

"I know I lost it when I found out she was with that man," John continues, "and I'm sorry for the damage I did. I snapped. It's not an excuse, it's just what happened. I shouldn't have, because, truth be told, we were already on the verge of divorce before the Turn." He sighs and scratches the back of Daisy's neck. The dog closes her eyes. "I found a business card for a divorce lawyer in her car's glove compartment when I borrowed it one day. I was going to confront her, but that's when the world started to fall apart. People dying. People turning. She needed me then. Needed me to get her and the boys out of Richmond alive. Protect her, Hunt for her. Feed her. So she never mentioned that lawyer's card. And neither did I."

Carol is reminded of how Rick and Lori never seemed to speak of Shane, and yet Rick had to have known. They just picked up from the last good place they left off and stuck together.

"But then we found the Hilltop," John continues. "We built that cabin. Things grew settled. And I reckon she's finally decided she doesn't need me to protect her anymore."

"I'm sorry things didn't work out for you two," Carol says quietly, because there's really nothing else to say.

Daisy plods away from John, who has stopped scratching her, and flops back down on the bearskin rug. "Mark Twain once wrote that fish and guests start to stink after three days," John says. "I've been here almost twice that long. I'll gather my things tomorrow and move into that trailer."

"The windows aren't fixed."

"They're covered up with cardboard, though. It'll just be dark. But that's fine at night."

"John, if I've made you feel unwelcome, I'm – "

"- Don't apologize, Carol. You haven't been inhospitable, but I can tell my presence has put a strain on your marriage, and I don't want to be responsible for that. You have a beautiful thing, you two. Far be it from me to throw a monkey wrench in those workings."

Daryl's told her that John is one of his best hunters and someone he can trust to have his back in the woods, but other than that, she's never understood why Daryl is friends with him. "I've never really gotten to know you, have I?" she admits.

"I don't suppose there's been much need for you to. We don't work together. And we fought on different fronts in the war."

"I never would have guessed you read  _Les Miserables_  for pleasure."

"And I never would have guessed you didn't have a career in management."

"You lost two children before you found the Hilltop?" She hadn't known about that either, until the other night, when he mentioned the triplets.

John nods.

"I lost one," she shares. "A daughter."

"Sophia."

Carol blinks. "Daryl's mentioned her?" she asks with surprise.

"I once asked him if he'd ever lost a child."

Carol covers her mouth with her hand as though to keep in some sad sound.

"Parents are not supposed to survive their children, are they?" John asks.

She shakes her head and uses her thumb to swipe away the stray tear that has fallen from her eye.

"Julie's never really healed from that. I suppose I haven't either. I had to put down my first son myself, that is…if you could call that  _thing_  my son. He was eleven years old, like your girl." He grits his teeth. "The second one… he made it to thirteen. But I had to listen to those things tear him apart while I got Julie and Jacob to safety. That was before we found the Hilltop." John watches the flames of the fire dance, and his gray-blue eyes grow solemn.

Carol's not used to silence from the gregarious man, and the silence is too heavy. She fills it by changing the topic. "Listen," she says. "Even though I told him not to, Daryl's probably going to ask you to put in a good word for me with the hunters for my re-election campaign. And I want you to know I don't expect that of you, and I don't want you to feel obligated out of friendship to him to say anything you don't believe. I've made my choices as mayor, and I'll stand or fall according to them."

John smiles and a dimple breaks out beneath the thick, ash-colored stubble on his left cheek. "As if you need me to put in a word for you with the hunters. The hunters are in your pocket, Carol."

"What?"

"Oh, they moan and they groan to show their compassion for my situation, but who do you think they're going to vote for? A  _farmer_? A farmer who didn't even fight in the last war? You kept the Hilltop standing."

"I thought the hunters were angry with me for letting the Council give Julie the cabin."

"We're becoming more agricultural, but you still appreciate the  _importance_  of hunting. Roderick doesn't. You know how crucial it is to sustain these forests no matter how many eggs those chickens lay or how many potatoes we plant. You know how important it is to cull the deer to prevent their starvation, to store up smoked and cured meat for the winter and times of drought. You know what things we hunters need to do our jobs well. Ain't no hunter gonna vote for  _Roderick_  over  _you_. Certainly not  _me_."

"I didn't know you felt that way," Carol replies in surprise.

"You never asked."

"Daryl didn't tell me the hunters felt that way, either."

"Daryl doesn't talk to the hunters much, unless it's about hunting. And half of the time, he hunts by himself. He is not your best source of political gossip. Or any gossip, really."

Carol smiles. She studies John's handsome but haggard face. "You should come to the Christmas play with us. At the Kingdom. You didn't sign up."

"I'm not much for Dickens, and  _A Christmas Carol_  has been played to death."

"There are a lot of widows in the Kingdom." Henry's right – there are very few single women between the age of eighteen and thirty, but there are quite a few between the age of forty and sixty.

"I'm beginning to think that perhaps I should focus on self-improvement before I pursue another relationship," John tells her. "But I do appreciate the offer."

"Then you can hold down the fort for us when we're gone. Babysit Merle. Don't move out tomorrow. Finish up that trailer first, and when it's the way you want it…then worry about moving out."

"Thank you, Carol." He stands. "I  _will_  take you up on  _that_  offer. But it won't be long now before I move out, I promise you." John bids her goodnight and vanishes into his bedroom, and Carol returns to bed.

Daryl is sleeping on his stomach and spread out over half the bed. She pokes him to get him to roll on his side. He jerks in his sleep and reaches instinctively for a knife that isn't there.

"Shhh," she murmurs. "Just me."

"Just you," he repeats. "Ain't no such thing as  _just_  you. Yer the best damn thing in the world." He rolls on his side, drags her back against his chest, and kisses her cheek.

"You're a good friend, Daryl," she tells him.

He doesn't reply. He's already fallen asleep again.

[*]

Carol and Daryl lead the wagon train of twenty-five people who are visiting the Kingdom for the "winter festival." They glide a mile ahead of the rest, on his solar-powered motorcycle. Because the bike is smaller and thinner than his old chopper, there's not as much room for Carol, and she sits close behind, flush against his back, her legs pressed tightly to his, her arms wrapped securely around him as he shows off for her how fast his new creation can weave around debris.

When he gets too far ahead of the others, he leans the bike down toward the highway, circles back three-fourths a mile, and then makes a U-turn and zooms ahead again, popping a wheelie in the process, whether by accident or on purpose, Carol doesn't know. Either way, it makes her let out a surprised yelp and tighten her arms around him. Because the engine whines instead of roars, she can hear him laugh in response.

The ride is exhilarating, but it's also cold, despite her tightly buttoned brown suede jacket, leather gloves, knit hat, and well-wrapped wool scarf. The cold, mid-December air rips through the short strands of her silver hair, and she bends her neck to bury her frigid face against Daryl's back, where she breathes in the scent of leather, musk, and crisp winter air.

[*]

When the wagon train pulls through the gates of the Kingdom, Daryl parks his bike with the other vehicles – unhorsed carts, rickshaws, bicycles with cargo trailers, and a brown-and-black camouflage, rechargeable electric motorcycle. Carol, trailing a hand across his leather-clad shoulders, dismounts first. Daryl slides off and goes to examine the motorcycle.

Carol helps Hershey down from the large wagon cart, where he sits with Jesus and Gracie. Aaron has stayed behind to run things in Carol's absence, and, really, in the absence of over half of the Council – because Enid also sits in the cart with her boyfriend (and Carol assumes soon-to-be fiancé) Alden and Tara with her Oceanside girlfriend.

Henry hands over the reins of his horse to one stable hand and then helps another to unhook the horses from the cart. As the Kingdom's stable hands lead off the horses, the people from the Hilltop disperse, some finding old friends and others searching for new lovers. Henry promptly disappears, and Carol halfheartedly hopes he's not going to fool around with Jessica.

Michonne is the first to greet Carol and Hershey, with R.C. by her side. The two boys bump fists and then flutter their fingers in some secret handshake they developed when R.C. slept over at the Hilltop. Carol asks R.C. about his latest adventures in chess and if he's been doing anymore chemistry experimentation.

"I stawted a small fire," he admits, "but I put it out weal quick!" He still says his r's as w's half the time, which is one of the few things that reminds Carol he's only six.

" _I_  put it out real quick," Michonne clarifies.

"Where's Judith?" Carol asks.

"In dress rehearsal for the play," Michonne tells her.

Daryl stands up from his crouched position by the motorcycle and walks over to join them. "Who's bike is that?" he asks Michonne as he ruffles R.C.'s dark brown hair in greeting – or at least digs his fingers into it and shakes it, because it's too kinky to actually ruffle. Smiling, the boy jerks his head away.

"It belongs to the Kingdom's head mechanic," Michonne answers. Mechanics used to fix trucks and cars, but now they mostly fix bicycles, wagons, and small, solar-battery-powered vehicles. "It's built so you can take out the battery and recharge it in a solar docking station. It has about an eighty-mile radius. I'll introduce you to her later, if you want."

"Her?" Daryl asks, and Carol laughs at the surprised look on his face.

"Her," Michonne repeats. "You haven't met her yet?"

Daryl shakes his head.

"Her name's Dawn. She and her husband Dante found us about two years ago. She used to be a motorcycle mechanic. He was an art teacher."

"Useful," Daryl says sarcastically.

"Ezekiel thinks so. He put Dante to work teaching in the school and painting sets for the big play today." She smiles affectionately. "Sometimes I think Zeke is wildly impractical, and sometimes I think he's struggling to preserve what makes us all human. I fight for our lives, and he builds a world worth living in."

"Mhmhm," Daryl murmurs skeptically. "Gonna be popcorn at this play?"

Michonne laughs. "No, but they'll be hot chocolate afterwards. And marshmallows for roasting."

[*]

Carol leans back against a sturdy workbench in the mechanic's shop. The high school campus on which Ezekiel chose to build his Kingdom had a number of vocational programs – including for mechanics – and the shop is well equipped. Carol listens with increasing boredom as Daryl and the Kingdom's head mechanic talk about bikes. Dawn's building something at the moment, which rests on cinder blocks and lacks a seat and tires.

If Carol was the jealous type, she'd be bothered by the fact that Dawn is only forty and well-figured, that her green eyes sparkle when she talks, or that she seems to be impressed by Daryl's knowledge of bikes.

Daryl is speaking what sounds like a foreign language to Carol, peppered with words like "electronic regulator," "voltage regulator," "electric harness controller," and "ignition switch." And Dawn is speaking that private language back: "…single file coil if you're interested. I could trade if you don't need that extra internal contact switch…."

If she were the jealous type, Carol would be glad Dawn is already married, but she's not the jealous type, and, besides,  _Daryl_  is married. He's not only married, but extremely loyal, which would make it extra ridiculous for her to be jealous.

"Mind if I take a closer look?" Daryl asks, and when Dawn nods, he pries off the engine cover.

Daryl has changed since Carol first met him, in only good ways. His temper is better controlled, and he's more social, as social as anyone could ever expect Daryl to be, anyway. Women aren't afraid of him anymore, and sometimes they even notice how good-looking he is, especially now that he's gotten rid of the scraggly hair. Carol thinks maybe Dawn notices, and that  _would_  bother her,  _if_  she were the jealous type.

But she's not.

Carol pushes off the workbench. "I think I'm going to go try to find Ezekiel to say hello before the play."

She takes one step toward the open door of the garage, and Daryl says, "He's busy, ain't he? Dress rehearsal or some shit?"

"I'm sure he wouldn't mind the interruption. You stay," she tells him. "Just meet me in the theater before the play starts."

"Ya sure?" Daryl asks.

"Of course," Carol says. She passes a gaggle of kids – including Hershey – playing kickball on the baseball field – and makes her way inside the school to the theater, which is locked with a sign that reads:  _Rehearsal in progress_. So instead of greeting Ezekiel, she finds herself wandering the great foyer of the school and looking at the trophy cases.

The original school trophies have been either removed from the case of modified to celebrate the achievements of the Kingdom's residents. Plaques and trophies now celebrate the top students in the Kingdom's school, and the trophies honor the winners of the Kingdom's annual competitions in "knightly skills."

She sees Judith took first place in the youth firearms competition this year, that R.C. got the "Math Champion" school award, that Michonne placed first in swordsmanship and Dianne first in archery. Nabila received the "Best in Kingdom" award for her tomatoes at the "Annual Farm and Gardening Show," and some other man won accolades for his sizable pig. There are awards for blacksmithing, gunsmithing, art, music, writing, and architecture. There are even "humble servant" awards given to common laborers such as maids, launders, and gardeners. Jessica has received one such award, and Carol feels momentarily guilty for thinking so little of Henry's girlfriend.

Carol reads over the names in every category and files away the information. It's good to know who the talent is. There are some names she doesn't recognize, and she makes a mental note to ask Michonne about them later. She wonders, too, if the Hilltop should issue awards like this, if it would encourage healthy competition and self-improvement, or if, in their more egalitarian environment, it would come off as cheesy and forced or - worse yet - lead to accusations of special favors.

"Ain't with Zeke?"

Carol turns. She didn't hear Daryl's footsteps on the faux marble floor. She smiles slightly because he's followed her so soon instead of lingering in the garage with the hot mechanic. "The theater is locked until the play," she tells him. "I guess we'll just have to kill the time by making out under the staircase."

"Pfft."

"A walk, then?"

"Sure." He trails beside her as she begins to stroll from the foyer and into a long, locker-filled hallway.

"Dawn's pretty, isn't she?" Carol asks.

Daryl shrugs.

"You can say so," she assures him.

"I ain't stupid."

Carol chuckles. She laces her arm through his. "I always wanted to walk down the halls of my high school like this, on my boyfriend's arm."

"Why didn't ya?"

"Because I didn't have a boyfriend."

"Hell not?"

"I don't know if you remember this," she tells him, "but I used to be really shy and unassertive."

"Yeah. That didn't last long."

She laughs. "I suppose I was outgoing and adventurous back in elementary school, though. Junior high knocked all the confidence out of me. All those 7th grade girls making fun of my style – mocking my clothes because I was poor, and making fun of my appearance because I didn't have a mother to teach me how to put on make-up correctly."

"Fuck those girls," Daryl mutters.

"I drew inside myself by 8th grade, like a turtle into its shell. I concentrated on taking care of my widowed father." She's told him her father expected her to do all the housework when her mother died. He was a stern, distant man - not physically or sexually abusive, but demanding, critical, and unaffectionate, so unlike her caring, supportive mother, who died when Carol was eleven. "Ed was the first man who ever asked me out. I was twenty, and still living with my father. I'd taken an early morning job waitressing at a diner he used to go to after his night shift. I figured I'd better say yes when he asked me out, because I didn't think I was going to get any other offers."

"Why? Ya weren't this damn beautiful back then?" Daryl says it more like an honest, surprised question than an intentional compliment.

She smiles, cuddles closer, and rests her head on his shoulder as they walk. "Did you ever walk down the halls with your high school girlfriend like this?"

"Didn't have a high school girlfriend."

"No?" she asks. "Why not?" Despite all the years they've been together, he doesn't talk much about his past, at least not when it comes to women. When she asked about his "sexual history" before they had sex for the first time, she got a grand total of three facts out of him:

1\. He lost his virginity at the age of fourteen to an "older girl" who babysat the neighbor's kids and who initiated the sexual encounter. How much older, he wouldn't say.

2\. He hadn't had sex since at least six months before the Turn.

3\. He didn't have any STDs.

"I don't know if ya 'member this," he tells her, "but I used to be an asshole." He smirks. "'Fore I got so damn charmin'."

Carol laughs. A door clangs open, and the sound echoes in the hallway. Daryl startles, rips his arm from hers, whirls, and reaches instinctively for the bow that's not on his back because he left it, along with his pack, in the trailer they've been assigned for the night. Carol is likewise reaching for the knife at her hip when she realizes it's just the front door of the school banging open. People are filtering in through the foyer and toward the theater doors, which are now open. "Shall we?" Carol asks.

"Ain't got much of a choice, do I?" Daryl replies.

"There's that charm," she teases. Carol takes his hand and tugs him toward the theater.

[*]

When Carol tries to walk down the stairs of the school theater toward the front rows, Daryl stops on the top stair and doesn't budge. She pauses and looks back at him, and he shakes his head ever so slightly. Carol sighs, mounts the steps, and follows him to the middle of the very back row. They slide into two old and creaky seats. "Is this because we didn't get to make out under the stairs?" Carol teases. She adores how he still, after all these years, ducks his head when she teases him.

"Stahp," he mutters before raising his head again. "Just don't like people behind me."

Below them, the audience is filling in. Hershey sits with Michonne and R.C. at the center of the fourth row. No one dares to sit in the first two rows, but the third through eighth rows fill quickly, and there are now only four empty rows between Carol and Daryl and the rest of the audience. Carol looks around but doesn't see Henry anywhere.

The stage is lit by electric, free-standing lights plugged into portable power packs. Like Hilltop, the Kingdom has a few solar panels and a windmill, but it doesn't generate enough electricity to live like they did in the 20th century. This is an extravagant use of power, Carol thinks, and not one she's sure the Hilltop Council would approve. At Hilltop, power is used primarily in the communal kitchens, the clinic, and for heating the water tanks that supply the bathhouses. They do keep a few portable power packs charged, but those are used sparingly and for necessary things like space heaters in dwellings with no fireplaces.

The stage lights flicker off and then on again, and a hush falls over the auditorium. Ezekiel, dressed as a rather formidable and sturdy looking Bob Cratchet, emerges on stage and, in a booming voice, welcomes all the visitors from Hilltop. He also gives a brief history of the life of Charles Dickens, although not brief enough, apparently, because Daryl shifts in his seat, which creaks and whines. Carol reaches over, takes his hand, and squeezes it as though to say –  _relax, you'll survive_.

Daryl perks up later when Judith comes on the stage as, in this case,  _Tiny Tina_. He sits up straight in his seat and leans forward a little. When she's off stage, he whispers, "Little Ass Kicker's good, ain't she?" Carol smiles and nods.

Partway through the first act, Henry sneaks in and takes a seat at the end of the empty, second row. Jessica isn't with him, but the play is showing again tomorrow night, and perhaps she has duties to tend to now.

Jerry makes a jolly and boisterous ghost of Christmas present – he's perfect for the character, and when he appears on stage, Carol glances at Nabila who is sitting several rows in front of them and holding their sleeping infant in her arms.

There's a standing ovation when the play wraps up, and Daryl appears confused by people rising to their feet. He's the last one up, and he hooks his thumbs through his belt hoops instead of clapping, as if he can't be bothered by such nonsense. But when Judith steps forward to make her individual bow, his thumbs slip out of the loops and he joins in the applause.


	11. Chapter 11

Judith roasts a large, lumpy homemade marshmallow over one of the oil-can bonfires in the Kingdom's courtyard. "I like this way of using pig skins better than making pork rinds," she says.

"Blasphemy," Daryl tells her.

Carol snakes an arm around his waist and with her free hand raises her mug of hot chocolate to her lips for a sip. It tastes more like chocolate-flavored tea than she remembers hot chocolate tasting, and she's not sure how it was made, but she's still enjoying the warmth of it.

In the center of the courtyard looms a naturally grown evergreen tree that has been lit by candles, like something out of a storybook about 17th Century Germany. She hopes someone is keeping an eye on that thing so it doesn't catch fire, but it certainly is beautiful.

On the other side of the bonfire from Judith, R.C. carefully holds his marshmallow far enough from the flames to brown it lightly, while Hershey extends his so far that it catches fire. The little boy jerks out the stick, blows violently on it to put out the flames, and then frowns at the black mess.

"That's when they taste best," Carol assures him.

Hershey shrugs and takes a big bite out of it, jolts back, sticks out his tongue, and fans it with his hand.

"Let it cool first," Carol warns.

"Did you know when you toast mawshmellows," R.C. says, "the heat causes a chemical weaction that cweates water molecules. The water molecules evapowate, and that leaves the cawbon – "

"- Boring!" Judith interrupts.

" _You're_  boring," R.C. replies.

"'S just got diff'rn interests," Daryl tells her, and Judith looks a little guilty.

"I for one am interested in greeting my fine guests," booms a voice from behind them.

Carol turns to find Ezekiel approaching and gives him a hug, which causes Daryl to tense slightly beside her. Ezekiel pulls away fairly quickly and extends his hand to Daryl. "Glad you could join us."

Daryl, looking wary, shakes.

"You're not enjoying the hot chocolate?" Ezekiel asks.

"Let the kids split my cup," Daryl says.

Ezekiel smiles. "Perhaps you would not have made a good Scrooge after all. How did you like my Scrooge?"

When Daryl opens his mouth but can't seem to form an answer, Carol says, "Dianne was excellent for the part. I like the creative way you mixed up genders for some of those roles. But Judith stole the show in my opinion, didn't she?" She glances at Daryl, who grunts in agreement. "Jerry was a close second."

"You enjoyed the play, then?" Ezekiel asks her.

"It was well done. I never got to go to a play in the old world. I always wanted to."

" _Never_?" Ezekiel asks.

"Well, not since high school. This performance was definitely a step up from those."

"I'm glad I could give you the opportunity, then."

Beside her, Daryl tenses.

Ezekiel looks across Carol and Daryl to Judith. "Where is your mother, Judith?"

"Around," Judith tells him.

"Well, I need to greet the rest of my guests. It was a pleasure to see you, Carol, as always. And you too, Daryl." He nods to them and disappears, and Carol can almost feel Daryl's tense muscles unwind beside her.

[*]

Eventually, the candles in the tree are snuffed out and the party is moved inside the large school cafeteria, which is lit by kerosene lamps and candelabras and houses another Christmas tree covered in electric white lights. Daryl thinks that's extravagant. Carol would never waste electric resources like that.

They  _do_  have a fake plastic Christmas tree they set up in the cabin, but it's not  _lit_. He brought a real one into the cabin the first Christmas after it was built, but the tree brought too many bugs with it, and Carol said never again. So they put up the pretend thing these days. This year, Hershey and Carol decorated it with ornaments Henry made when he was learning to whittle years ago and those Hershey put together in school. There are, of course, stockings hanging from the fireplace as well, knit by Carol and labeled with pretty, curling letters. Daryl was strangely ecstatic when Carol gave him that stocking their first Christmas in the cabin, so much so that she laughed at his excitement, but he hadn't had one since his mother died when he was eight. His father didn't want to "bother" with Christmas.

"What are those lights plugged into?" Carol asks.

"Nothing," Ezekiel replies. "They're powered by lithium battery. We still have a few in storage, but half the time they're dead when we try to use them. I think this will be the last year we can hope any of them will work. So we're making the most of it." Ezekiel waves to Michonne on the other side of the cafeteria.

She doesn't notice him. She's talking to a man at the piano. Seated around the piano in blue, plastic chairs are a number of other musicians who are pausing between Christmas carols to tune their instruments. The kids have vanished to go bob for apples from a large plastic tub on the cafeteria stage, and Daryl lingers uncomfortably by Carol's side as Ezekiel continues to chat her up.

"I'm going to go find Henry," Carol says eventually. "I don't know where he disappeared to, and I know Michonne's kids will want to spend a little time with him." She leaves Daryl alone with the king.

"Can you believe Carol never got to go to a play until today?" the king asks. "I'm glad I could give her that opportunity."

Daryl grunts.  _He's_  the one who  _gave her that opportunity_. He  _drove_  her here. She's  _his_  date.

Michonne begins to stroll sleekly toward them as the piano, guitars, and violins strike up "Deck the Halls." While Daryl lingers behind, Ezekiel strides forward to meet her partway across the floor, though he stops still and waits for her to close the gap. Then he points upward, to a mistletoe that dangles from the high cafeteria ceiling. Michonne wraps her arms around his neck, and they kiss deeply.

Daryl looks left and right to see if Carol has rejoined them, because he assumes Ezekiel is trying to make her jealous with that kiss. Ezekiel's  _never_ kissed Carol like that, at least not that Daryl's seen, not in public anyway. Their public kissing, what little of it Daryl was forced to witness before the breakup, always consisted of quick, almost friendly pecks on the lips.

Michonne pulls away first, although Ezekiel keeps his hands on her hips. He steps forward, leans in, and whispers something in her ear, to which she responds with a low, sultry chuckle. Then she playfully slaps his ass, jerks her head toward the carolers, and, hand in hand, the couple walks to join the singing, leaving Daryl mystified.

[*]

"I think they's really together," Daryl says as he strips off his weapons and lays them on the big, metal teacher's desk in the classroom trailer they've been given to sleep in for the night. Hershey is sleeping over with R.C. at Michonne's.

"Who?" Carol asks as she puts the clean sheets Nabila gave her on the air mattress on the floor.

"Zeke 'n 'Chonne."

"Of course they're together. I  _told_  you they were."

"Yeah, but, mean…think they  _like_  each other."

Carol laughs. After snapping out a sleeping bag flat like a blanket on the mattress, she comes over and leans back against the desk as he takes off his belt. "Did you have a good time today?"

"Had a good time seein' you 'n Hershey have a good time."

She smiles. "The play wasn't so awful, was it?"

"Went on a bit long."

"Thank you for coming with us."

He folds his belt in half and lays it on the desk. "Mhmhm."

"Where do you suppose Henry is sleeping tonight?"

"Where do ya think?" he asks as he takes off his boots. He sheds his leather jacket and goes to tinker with the space heater they were left for the night. It's plugged into a rechargeable portable power pack. They do the same thing at the Hilltop for dwellings that don't have fireplaces. Soon enough, the coils glow orange.

"Jessica wasn't at the play. When I went looking for Henry, I found him hanging out with some of the knights. You think maybe he broke up with her?"

"Think it's damn difficult for a nineteen-year-old guy to turn down free blow jobs." He moves the space heater closer to the bed.

"He might if he has any interest in ever dating Cyndie." And if he took Carol's advice to heart. "Sometimes two in the bush are worth more than one in the hand."

Daryl looks at her with a furrowed brow.

"I mean, you held out for me, didn't you?" she asks with a smile. When Daryl doesn't reply, she repeats, " _Didn't_  you?"

"Carol, ain't no one but you offered to blow me since the world collapsed."

"And if someone had? While I was with Tobin, or Ezekiel, if someone had, would you have just - "

"- No. But I ain't 19 neither. 'N I don't really like… _company_." By that she assumes he means women in his personal space. "'Cept you."

Carol closes the space between them, slides her arms around his waist, and kisses him. Drawing back, she says, "I just don't want Henry to end up trapped in an unsuitable relationship."

"Carol. 'S 19. Ain't no one ends up with the person they date when they's 19."

"I did. Well, the person I dated when I was twenty. And Henry's world is even smaller than mine was."

Daryl chews on his bottom lip. It slides out from between his teeth a little raw. "Nah, ya  _didn't_. Didn't end up with Ed. Ended up with  _me_."

She smiles bittersweetly. "It was a long, rough road to you. And not a road I'd want Henry walking."

"'S that Bible of yers say 'bout the easy road? It don't go nowhere good in the end."

She sighs. "Maybe you're right," she says as she takes off her boots and outer shirt. "He has to walk his own path. Make his own mistakes. At least he has the good sense not to get her pregnant. He told me he's not having sex with any woman until he's married. I just hope he doesn't marry her  _for_  the sex."

Daryl unbuttons the top two buttons of his long-sleeve flannel and then just yanks it over his head. His undershirt rides up slightly to reveal a hint of his taut abdomen. They both crawl in under the weight of the unzipped sleeping bag still wearing their pants. He leaves her the side of the mattress closest to the space heater. Carol settles her head on his chest.

"Do you think he will?" she asks.

"Ain't the end of the world if he does," Daryl mutters. "She's a dumb ass, but she ain't mean. She'll do his laundry, sweep his floors, fuck 'em most of the time he wants to be fucked. He'll take care of 'er, keep 'er fed 'n safe. He'll be bored, so he'll stay out late huntin' and find other people to talk to who ain't quite as dumb. Won't cheat on 'er, even if he kind of wants to. It'll be a'ight."

"I'd like to think he'd want more than that out of a marriage."

"Kind of marriage my granddaddy had. Smart as a whip, m' granddaddy. Could have really been somethin' if he hadn't grown up in them backwoods. Ran his own mechanic's shop in town. Chopped cars 'n never got caught. M' nana was dumb as a box of rocks, but they had the best marriage I ever saw growin' up."

"I guess neither of us saw a lot of good examples of marriage when we were growing up. I suppose that's the kind of marriage my parents had, except my father was the dumb one and my mother was the smart one, and she drank to get herself down to his level. One day she drove drunk…straight into a tree…and…well."

Daryl hugs her close. "Didn't know that's how she died." He gently strokes the hair at the back of her neck. "Listen, Henry's a good kid. Little arrogant, but…kid knows right from wrong. Ain't afraid to work hard. 'S loyal to his friends. He's gonna be a'ight. Whoever he ends up with…he's gonna be a'ight."

Carol, with the warmth of the space heater burning against her back, closes her eyes and tries not to worry. "I guess it's a blessing," she murmurs, "that I have the luxury to worry about these kind of things now."

"Mhmhm," he agrees and kisses the top of her head.

"Ten minutes of cuddling before you pull away?" she asks.

"'Til ya fall asleep," he assures her.

[*]

Carol falls asleep in Daryl's arms and awakes when the sunlight streams in through the small classroom windows. She slept heavy and late into the morning, and she feels disoriented as she sits up and looks around the trailer only to find no sign of Daryl. His belt, boots, knives, jacket, and handgun are gone, though his crossbow still leans against the teacher's desk.

Stretching, she rises, and soon enough she finds a note on the teacher's desk – "Went to see the mechanic. Bring you b-fast." It's followed by a scrawled signature in which only the D, the Y, and the L are legible.

Carol dresses and tries not to be bothered by the fact that her husband has snuck off to see the gorgeous mechanic early in the morning. She's straightening the trailer when the door opens and Daryl walks in with a basket containing two cornmeal muffins, an apple, a bit of cheese, and two thermoses of what she hopes is coffee, but she'll take tea. He beats his boots against the open door frame to shake off a layer of snow before setting the basket on the desk.

"Have fun talking bikes?" she asks.

"Mhmhm. 'N I traded some ammo for some parts."

"You were there awfully early."

"Dawn starts work early. Likes to be done by noon to spend time with 'er kid."

"She has a child?"

"Little girl. Five. Cute as a button. Bet Hershey's gonna marry her one day."

Carol chuckles and then glances at the snow now littering the inside of the trailer. It rarely snows more than a light dusting in December, but there are chunks of it melting on the industrial carpet now. She goes to look out the window and gasps. "How deep is it?"

"Foot maybe. We ain't goin' back today. Or tomorrow neither, likely. Wait 'til it warms 'n melts some."

"Good thing I have Aaron to rely on to run things."

They eat the breakfast he brought and Daryl talks excitedly about the bike Dawn is working on and what features he's going to use on the next bike he builds.

Carol, feeling a little jealous, despite her best efforts not to, says, "Ezekiel was really outstanding in that play, wasn't he?" Daryl's excitement dies and his face falls, and she scolds herself for her pettiness and meanness. Hastily, she changes the subject: "I bet the kids will want to go sledding today."

They do, on a steep but short hill behind the school, using old fashioned-wooden sleds with metal rails. R.C. and Hershey race each other stomach down, and Judith asks for running pushes from Daryl, who complies. Once he even goes down the hill on the sled with her between his legs, his weight sending the sled flying all the way into the forest. The forest is fenced off an acre into the woods, so there's no fear of walkers, but they do come back a little scratched up.

Seeing how fast they went, R.C. asks Ezekiel to ride with him, and they do, though Ezekiel steers to the right before plunging into the brush and slides to a gradual stop at the bottom of the hill. They tumble off the sled and make snowballs, one of which R.C. pelts at his big sister, who growls at him and begins to make one of her own. Hershey joins R.C.'s team, while Ezekiel sees fit to pummel Daryl, who responds in greater force with a larger snowball hastily manufactured.

Carol and Michonne sit bundled up at a picnic bench at the top of the hill, watching the scene. "That seems a little more violent than playful," Michonne observes. "Daryl isn't still jealous of Ezekiel, is he?"

"Maybe a little," Carol replies. "How's that going?"

Michonne grins. "I feel like a teenage girl half the time. And then the other half the time I want to shake him silly. We've been fighting like cats and dogs over the defenses. He thinks we should draw in our territory so it's easier to defend. I think we should expand it so we have more of a buffer."

"And what are you going to do?"

"We're gong to expand it, of course."

"Of course," Carol says with a chuckle.

"Ezekiel and I still haven't… _you know_. It's difficult with the kids being in my apartment. I'd have to sneak off. And I couldn't stay the night. I need to find sleep overs for them both."

"I'd volunteer to let you send them back with us, but then it might snow again and you wouldn't see them for weeks."

"Yeah, and I want Christmas and New Year's with them. I'll find someone in the Kingdom to take them off my hands for a night."

Daryl, his short, graying brown hair coated in snow and the white flakes clinging to his jacket, plods his way up the hill now as Ezekiel tugs up R.C.'s sled. Coming to a stop near the picnic table, he shakes like a dog, scattering flakes on Carol. She jerks back, and he laughs, but he's not laughing by the time she's made her first snowball. He runs backwards and tries to dodge it when she pelts it at him, but she's too fast for him, and it splatters on his shoulder. Soon he's chasing her across the top of the hill with his own snowball, and then down it, until both go tumbling and land in a tangled mass of limbs at the bottom of the hill, where he kisses her and says, "Merry Christmas."

[*]

It's two more nights before the roads are navigable on motorcycle, but they're still back at the Hilltop two days before Christmas Eve. They find John still in the cabin, and Daisy before the fireplace, with six tiny puppies jostling for her tit. Merle has been confined to Hershey's room so as not to bother the brood.

Hershey squeals with excitement and goes to pet the puppies, while John cries, "Gentle, gentle. Pick one for Christmas. I'll give him to you when he's weaned."

Hershey settles on the runt of the litter, a little brown one with a white splotch over his left eye, and names him Huck.

John's things are packed and he's ready to move into the trailer. "Just waitin' for y'all to get back." He intends to house Daisy and her litter in one of the warmer barns, but Carol suggests he leave the dog with them until the puppies are weaned. "We've got more room here for her." Besides, they're adorable.

John thanks them for their hospitality, takes his things, and leaves his dogs for now.

[*]

That night, the hand-knit stockings hang by the chimney with care, each with a name embroidered at the top. Henry's is there, even though he doesn't live in their cabin anymore. He's promised to spend Christmas with them, which unlike Thanksgiving is not a communal dinner affair. "He just wants my cooking," Carol grumbles, and Daryl says, "Probably wants the company, too."

Even Merle has his own stocking, though Daisy and the puppies, being temporary interlopers, are not so fortunate. Huck will no doubt have one by next year, assuming they make it to next year without war. So far, from what the scouts have reported, the prospects are good – no major threats have been spied in their newly-made island, but they are far from scouting the entire thing, and forays will stop for the winter.

The plastic Christmas tree stands in the corner opposite Carol's desk, over-filled with years of handmade ornaments from Henry and Hershey and even one Daryl made out of brass shell casings.

Carol settles happily against Daryl's side on the couch as the puppies sleep curled by their mother before the fireplace, and Merle keeps Hershey company in his bed. Daryl drapes an arm around her. "I wonder what you're going to put in my stocking this year?" she says.

Carol loves stocking stuffers. Ed never put anything in there except one or two new cooking utensils each year – a wooden spoon, a spatula, spaghetti tongs, a serving fork - but Sophia always filled it with little hand made goodies that made her feel loved.

"Dunno," he says. "Guess y'll have to wait to see what Santa brings ya. Less ya been naughty." He smirks and nuzzles her neck.

"And here I thought it was to my  _advantage_  to be naughty."

His eyes twinkle. "Ya wanna be?"

She smiles, stands, and holds a hand out to him, but when they're in the bedroom and he's closing the door behind them, she says, "I don't really want to be  _naughty_  tonight." She almost laughs when she sees his crestfallen face. "I don't mean I don't want sex. I just want…Christmas sex."

Daryl smiles. They've been together long enough that he knows what she means. She wants it tender. So he undresses her slowly and takes her gently on deerskin rug in front of the fireplace. The fire dance along with their graceful movements, filling the short silences between their gentle sighs and needy moans with crackling. He carries her to the bed afterward, beneath the heavy quilt, and Carol spoons naked against her husband as she drifts into sleep.


	12. Chapter 12

On Christmas Eve, Daryl meets up with John in the morning as the last of the snow melts in trickling streams down the tree-lined, Virginia hills. Most of the other hunters have taken both today and tomorrow off, but neither Daryl nor John can ignore the call of the forest. They might as well have. A deer eludes them, and Daryl loses an arrow in the process, which snaps in half when he tries to yank it from the tree where it has deeply lodged itself. He curses and Merle whimpers. "Ain't mad at  _you_ ," he tells the dog.

"I think he misses Daisy," John says. The new mother has been relieved of her hunting duties until the puppies are weaned. "How's she doing by the way?"

"I been keepin' Merle off 'er," Daryl assures him. "'N Hershey off the puppies."

John looks around the forest. "We're gonna have to go back to playing the sit and wait game. I've been collecting acorns for bait. You repair that ghillie suit?"

"Yeah. But I like trackin' better."

"The trees are too bare. They can see us coming now. It's our only choice. You and Henry got one that way recently, didn't you?"

"Mhmhm."

"I've been thinking it might be time for our boys to lead their own hunting team. Take the west hunting grounds to themselves."

Daryl glances at him. He thinks Henry's probably ready for that leadership role, but he's not so sure  _Jacob_  is.

John laughs. "Your face speaks  _volumes_ , Daryl. I know Jacob's got a lot to learn…but he'll defer to Henry. He usually does."

"A'ight."

They walk a little farther into the woods, and Daryl walks backwards a few steps and slides some wet, snow-flecked leaves to the side with his boot. "Well lookey here."

"Bobcat?"

"Mhmhm," Daryl agrees. "Two of 'em." He points at a faint print in the muddy earth beside a patch of snow.

"That's odd. They're usually solitary creatures."

"Yeah. Must be matin' early. Usually don't start 'til January or February."

"Well, we better snag those cats, or they'll be taking down our deer."

Daryl licks his lips. "Make a good barbacoa, too."

They follow the tracks for a while, but they go a long way and disappear through a creek.

"They pick up on the other side," John says when Daryl stops at the edge.

"Carol wants me to go to church with 'er this evenin'. Gotta get back 'n get cleaned up."

"Well, at least I don't have to do  _that_  anymore, I suppose.  _He'll_  be taking her to church now."

Daryl doesn't respond, because he doesn't know what to say that. It makes him uncomfortable when John talks about Julie, not just because he feels bad for his friend, but because it reminds him that sometimes women leave. Not that Carol's has any reason to leave him, he doesn't think, but sometimes he still wonders how he ended up with her. In the end, though, all it took was a few words:

_"Don't marry 'em. There ain't no fuckin' chemistry there, and ya know it."_

_"Is that the only reason, Daryl?"_

_Shifting eyes, a thumb in the mouth, the hang nail torn to shreds…_

_"Is it, Daryl?"_

_"N I can't lose ya. 'Cause I love ya."_

Hell, if he had known that was all it would take, he'd have said it when she started rubbing shoulders with Tobin.

"You go on back," John tells him. "Make your woman happy. I'll track the cats on my own."

"Want Merle?"

"No. Merle doesn't obey anyone but you."

"Suit yerself." Daryl whistles and the dog follows.

[*]

The hazy light of the setting sun filters in through the painted, arched windows of the chapel. The four Advent candles, all lit now, flicker in the dark green wreath near the altar. Oil lamps stand ready to be ignited when it grows darker.

"You may be seated," Father Gabriel intones, and there's rustling and a clattering of bodies against wood as the congregation, jostling for space in the cramped chapel, eases down into the pews and onto the folding chairs that line the back.

Because of the lack of seating, Hershey stands lounged back against Henry's knees for now, making funny faces at Gracie, who is sitting sideways on Aaron's lap in the pew in front of them, her arms draped around her father's neck, and trying not to giggle at Herhsey's attempts. She fails, and a long chortle escapes her.

"Settle down," Aaron scolds gently and then makes her sit forward on his lap. Hershey frowns.

Jesus mutters, "You can't expect her to sit still for this."

Daryl is currently wedged against Carol's side, and his arm is squished so tightly against her that he eases it out and extends it back across the wooden pew behind her instead. Carol leans her head against his shoulder as the homily begins.  She places a hand on his knee and feels that the fabric of his tan khakis is no longer stiff. He took this pair of pants new from the storage house for Easter service five years ago and has worn them precisely two times a year since, on his Christmas and Easter trips to church with her. His forest green, button-down shirt is more well-worn, and the color is starting to fade in places, but she's laundered and pressed it.

Daryl leans his head down and whispers in her ear the same thing he does every year, "How long's this part?"

"As long as it always is," she whispers back. She kisses his cheek. "Thank you for coming. It means a lot to me."

"Mhmhm." His eyes flit over the well-fitting, red, ankle length dress she wears. She wears dresses to church sometimes, even though this is the least practical world in which to wear them, simply because she never got to wear pretty things with Ed. The black combat boots that peek out from under the hem are probably not the most fitting match for the dress, however. Not that Daryl seems to mind. "Ya look real nice," he whispers.

Carol smiles. Father Gabriel talks on. Hershey draws with a finger in the rays of setting sunlight reflecting on the back of the pew, cutting the light with shadows, as he bounces restlessly forward and back against Henry's knees.

Eventually, they all rise again, Daryl standing first on the priest's command to give Carol the space to rise and then extending a hand to her to help her up. After a hymn, they're kneeling for confession and then saying the communion liturgy, which Daryl does not join in except for the Lord's Prayer - the one thing he knows by heart. His grandfather taught it to him, he told Carol, when he was five, and he's never forgotten anything he's memorized.

When it's time to go up to the rail for communion, Daryl gets out of the way of the people exiting the pew, but he stays behind. When Carol returns to the pew, she kneels on the kneeler and prays silently for her family before sitting back, and she can feel Daryl's puzzled eyes on her. He's never understood this aspect of her personality, and she doesn't really either, except that she still has fond memories of going to church with her mother when she was very young, before her mother lost herself in wine and then was lost forever. Church was also her one respite from Ed, the one thing she got to have that was entirely her  _own_. It's funny now how much she wants to  _share_  it.

Carol's favorite part of the Christmas Eve service comes at the very end, when the candles are distributed, and they all stand and sing Silent Night together as they share the flame from candle to candle. Herhsey's wick catches fire from Henry's, and the little boy holds the flickering flame up to Carol, who takes his light and then extends its glowing warmth to Daryl. Daryl bows his candle down to hers, buries it in the depths of her flame, and draws it out carefully again. Soon, the entire chapel is bathed in light.

[*]

Merle, lying huddled in the warmth of the straw in the manger scene, waits patiently outside the church as the family emerges. Daryl whistles, the dog yelps, and soon he's fast on the family's heels.

When they all get to the cabin, the scent of seasoned boar, carrots, and potatoes – which Carol finished cooking before church and has left warming in the dutch oven, wafts through the door as Hershey bursts inside the cabin. Henry follows his adopted brother, and then Daryl thunders in after Merle, shouting, "Leave that bitch alone!" as Daisy and the puppies yelp.

Carol's about to follow them all when she hears a voice behind her: "Smells good, Carol." She closes the cabin door most of the way and turns to see John looking up from the foot of the stairs. He holds up a bottle of wine. "A Christmas present. I found it in a solitary little cabin while I was out tracking this afternoon. Found a walker, too, but I don't reckon he needed it." John pats the front pocket of his jacket. "And I brought a little treat for Daisy. If you'll just let me come in and give it to her, I'll be out of your hair in a jiffy."

Carol doesn't think John has come merely to drop off a couple of gifts. Henry mentioned that John's son is spending Christmas Eve with a new Oceanside girlfriend, and Julie is no doubt spending it with her lover. "Would you like to join us for dinner?"

John feigns surprise at the invitation and tips his worn Stetson with one finger. "Well, I mean, if it wouldn't be any trouble, ma'am…but I wouldn't want to  _impose_."

She smiles indulgently. "You wouldn't be imposing. Come on in."

John follows her up the stairs, strides into the cabin a few steps, freezes in place, and then backtracks to remove his boots with a muttered, "Sorry, ma'am." 

"John's joining us for dinner," Carol announces.

Hershey is on the floor petting the puppies, and Daryl is backing out of the boy's bedroom where he is currently confining Merle to keep him from stressing out Daisy. "Hey, man," Daryl says as the door clicks shut. "You find them bobcats?"

"No, but I found this." John holds up the wine bottle by the neck. "Well aged, I'm sure. Let's pray it hasn't turned."

"Can I have a glass?" Hershey asks.

"No," Carol tells him.

"But you can have a sip of mine," Henry says.

"Did you pick one of those pups for yourself yet, Henry?" John asks. "Jacob wants the solid black one."

"And Huck's mine!" shouts Hershey, bending over to hug the squirming, splotchy runt.

"Ease up," Daryl warns him.

"I get one?" Henry asks.

"Of course," John tells him. "You're one of our best hunters. Every good hunter needs his own hunting dog."

Beaming at the praise, Henry looks over the litter and points to the biggest one. "That one?"

"He's yours," John declares. "Name him."

"I think I'll do what Daryl did," Henry muses. "And name him after my brother. I'll call him Benji."

Henry grabs the extra chair from the rolltop desk as Carol squeezes in another place setting. John offers his treat to Daisy, who seems happy to see her owner. Meanwhile, Hershey tries to peek into his stocking, and Daryl tells him, "Santa ain't come yet."

"I don't believe in Santa anymore," Hershey replies.

"No?" asks Daryl, looking a little crestfallen.

"But, I mean, I still believe he'll bring me presents!" Hershey hastens.

"The boy is no dummy," John observes.

When they're settled around the table eating, Carol asks, "Are you staying the night, Henry?"

"Uh…No," he answers slowly, as though it did not occur to him he'd be asked to stay the night and that he would have to turn her down.

"But don't you want to see Hershey open presents in the morning?" Carol asks, trying to control the disappointment her voice. "And your stocking might have a thing or two in it."

Henry glances at the mantle. "My stocking's up?"

"Henry'll stay the night," Daryl says in tone that is not open to discussion.

Henry opens his mouth as if to protest, closes it, pauses a moment, and then finally speaks: "I guess I'll go back and get a few things after dinner, then," he says. "Although I was kind of looking forward to the dorm room all to myself tonight."

"You'll have your old bedroom all to yourself, too," Carol tells him.

"Why would you have the dorm room to yourself?" John asks. "Where's my boy?"

Henry's eyes widen slightly, and he abruptly fills his mouth with a gulp of wine as an excuse not to answer.

"Ah," John says. "Staying with his new girlfriend tonight?"

Henry doesn't answer.

"Rachel? Is that her name? How  _old_  is she?"

"She's nineteen," Henry answers. "Like me."

John looks relieved. "Oh, thank God. I can't tell sixteen from twenty any more. Nice girl?"

"Uh…" Henry sets his wine glass down. "Jacob likes her."

"You gonna eat the rest of those?" Daryl asks, gesturing at John's potatoes with his fork.

John draws his plate protectively close to himself. " _Of course_  I'm going to eat them." He eyes Daryl guardedly as he stabs a potato onto his fork. "Excellently seasoned, Carol. Some of the best potatoes I've had since Julie's pot…" He trails off abruptly, pops the potato roughly in his mouth, and chews.

Carol raises her wine glass to him. "The wine is good, too. It hasn't turned."

"Not better than Kingdom wine, though," Henry says.

"Better because we didn't have to trade for it," Carol tells him. "It was a gift. Thank you, John."

"The least I could do." He turns his attention to Daryl. "When you're done exchanging presents tomorrow, let's meet up and finish following those bobcat tracks."

Daryl hastily swallows the last bite on his plate, the first one done with his dinner, as usual. "Ain't huntin' tomorrow. Promised Carol I'd stay home all day for Christmas. Take a day off."

"The tracks might be gone if it snows again."

"Ain't gonna snow again."

"And you know that how?" John asks.

"Don't smell like it."

"Ah well, I would not dare to question your olfactory intuition. Nevertheless…I suppose I'll go out and do some tracking tomorrow just in case." He sighs. "It's not like I have anything better to do."

Carol's not sure if John's fishing for an invitation to Christmas morning, but she doesn't extend one. That's their personal family time, and she thinks John's inclusion in their Christmas Eve dinner is sufficient. "Maybe you can get your son to track them with you."

"Maybe," John says. "But I suspect he may be sleeping in."

After dinner, John's clearly not ready to leave. He invites Daryl out to the back porch for a smoke, offering him three hand-rolled cigarettes as a Christmas present. "Didn't get you nothin'," Daryl says as they step out the back door.

Henry and Hershey help Carol to clean up, though Hershey doesn't do much more than clear the table before running to the fireplace to play with Daisy and the puppies. "Careful!" Carol warns him. "Remember how little they are!"

"I know!"

When Henry returns to his dorm to pack an overnight bag, Herhsey asks to be tucked in. "Your bedtime's not for an hour," Carol tells him.

"I know, but I want Christmas to come sooner!"

Carol chuckles and takes him to his room, where Merle is curled on the end of the bed, buried beneath a blanket he's wrestled into a nest. "Oh, I'm sorry, Merle. It's a bit cold in here, isn't it?"

Carol starts the fire, reads to Hershey, and then leaves him to his attempted sleep. When she's out, she finds Henry returned and dropping a backpack in his old bedroom. "Think I'm going to join the other men on the back porch," he tells her.

The  _other men_. Carol tries not to smile at his desperation to be considered fully a part of the tribe of grown-ups. "Well, don't smoke," she insists.

"Don't worry. I tried it once, and I can't stand it."

"When did you try it?" she asks.

"Uh…"

"I suppose Jacob gave one to you?"

"Yeah. Uhm…Jacob."

When Henry goes out the kitchen door to the back porch, Carol heads straight for the corner of her closet where she hid the presents. She'll take this opportunity to fill her boys' stockings.

[*]

Henry leans with his elbows on the rail. "Can I have a drag?"

Daryl hands the cigarette over to him and says what he always says: "Don't tell yer mama."

Henry sucks in and blows the smoke out over the rail. Then he coughs and hands it back.

John chuckles.

"That's how far he gets," Daryl mutters. "One puff. Every damn time."

"Well, try though I might," Henry says, "your footsteps are tough to walk in. I don't think I could tumble down a hill and fall on an arrow and yank it out of my own side either."

"Well now,  _this_  sounds like a  _story_ ," John says.

"'S when I was lookin' for Sophia. Told ya 'bout that."

"But you apparently omitted some rather exciting details." John sucks in and blows smoke out behind himself. He furrows his brow. "Henry was with y'all back then? I thought you were a Kingdom boy originally."

"I was," Henry replies. "Before Carol and Daryl adopted me. But Carol told me about it. She was trying to talk me out of doing something stupid."

"Something stupid like tumbling down a hill and landing on your own arrow?" John asks.

"Hey, ain't like I just lost my footin'," Daryl insists. "Dumb ass horse got spooked and threw me."

"No," Henry replies. "Something like hunting alone. Which  _Daryl_  does all the time, but  _I'm_  not supposed to."

"Well, if you can't pull an arrow out of your own chest, perhaps you shouldn't," John tells him.

"Wasn't m'  _chest_ ," Daryl mutters.

"Chest sounds better," John says. "That's how you should tell it."

"And then," Henry adds, "when he was stumbling back to camp, he got shot by some woman who thought he was a walker."

John stomps the steel heel of his boot on the planks of the porch in excitement. "And you didn't  _tell_  me this story?"

"Wasn't the best day of my life," Daryl mutters.

"I pulled a knife out my stomach once," John says. "But that was before I lost those thirty pounds, so it was mostly stuck in fat."

"You used to be fat?" Henry asks skeptically.

"Sympathy weight. I put it on when Julie was pregnant with the triplets."

Daryl snorts.

"So…" Henry asks, "you got knifed  _before_  the Collapse?"

"Believe it or not," John tells him, "people attacked and robbed and killed each other even before all this. I was trying to break up a barroom fight. I should have been  _home_  with my pregnant wife instead of out with the guys. And I probably should have left the knife in until the paramedics got there, because I made a bit more of a mess of it than they would have."

"Well, I've got stories," Henry says.

"You've lived over half your life in an apocalypse," John tells him. " _Of course_  you've got stories. The question is, are they anywhere near as interesting as this story Daryl has yet to tell me?"

"Well…no," Henry admits.

"Are they even as interesting as that one time Daryl and his cousin were drag racing on I-75 –"

"- Shh!" Daryl hisses.

"- with those two cheerleaders –"

"- Shh!"

"- in the cars they  _borrowed_  from their grandpa's mechanics shop?"

"Shh!" Daryl hisses again.

"Oh, Henry doesn't know that story?" John asks innocently.

"I want to know that story!" Henry insists.

Daryl glances over his shoulder at the cabin window.

"She's busy doing the stockings," Henry assures him.

Daryl takes a quick pull on his cigarette. "Well, 's fifteen," he begins, "didn't have m' license yet, n'…."

[*]

The fire flickers low and gently in the hearth. Daryl's quiet whisper reaches Carol's ears: "Ya 'sleep yet?"

He's lying spooned against her, because she asked for  _ten minutes of cuddling_. They got to bed late, because John didn't leave until almost eleven, at which point Henry promptly disappeared into his own room. Now, Carol feels like she's caught a second wind. "I don't know if I  _can_  sleep."

"Ya don't go to sleep, and Santa ain't gonna stuff yer stockin'."

Carol chuckles, turns toward him, and puts a hand on his cheek. "I really think I'd prefer Santa  _stuff my stocking_  while I'm awake."

"Stahp."

She trails her fingers down over his t-shirt to the tie on his sweat pants, the end of which she twirls around one finger. "Yeah? You  _want_  me to stop?"

"Well…no. Not if yer doin'  _that_. Just meant stop the corny jokin'."

"You love it."

"Don't love it. Don't even like it."

She kisses his chin and nips her way to his ear. "You  _love_  it."

He smiles. "If'n I agree I love it, you gonna stick that hand down my pants?"

"Maybe."

"Love it. Love all yer damn corny sex jokes."

She tugs the string on his sweat pants loose.

"Best damn jokes in the world," he continues, and she begins to slide her hand inside, her fingertips grazing over his belly. "Should be doin' comedy on a stage in a club somewhere."

She grasps his stirring erection, and he closes his eyes and hisses as she strokes it to fullness, all the while trailing kisses across his jawline. Daryl moans, flips her suddenly on her back, and begins tugging down her flannel pajama bottoms and underwear. "Gonna stuff yer stockin'  _real_  good, darlin'."

Carol's laugh is drowned by Daryl's mouth pressing hard against hers and his tongue plunging inside. Pretty soon, laughter is the farthest thing from her mind.

It's not the gentle Christmas sex of two nights ago, but it's just as satisfying in its own rite - quick and hungry and playful and just a tiny bit rough. After both are spent, she pretends to fall asleep and doesn't budge when she senses the bed shift, hears him dressing, and then feels the cool air draft through the bedroom door as he quietly opens and closes it.


	13. Chapter 13

The bed is bouncing.

Why is the bed bouncing?

The hell is that at the foot of his bed?

Is that a Chupacabra?

Daryl jolts upright and slams his hand down on top of his holstered gun on the nightstand. His hand freezes there as he claws his way out of his dream and into the present reality. "Jesus," he mutters as Hershey, who is on all fours at the bottom of the bed, comes into view. The boy is practically jumping up and down like puppy. " _Knock_  next time."

Carol stirs groggily beside him, pulls herself half into a sitting position, and blinks. "Hershey, the sun isn't even up. What time is it?"

"I don't know."

"Give us thirty more minutes," Carol tells him.

Hershey frowns but backs off the bed. "Fine. But it's  _Christmas_."

He pads out of the room in his flannel, camouflage pajamas and his fuzzy, winter socks and shuts the door behind him.

Daryl flops back down and Carol rolls against him, settling her head with a sigh on his chest. He drapes an arm across her back, and she groans when the dogs start barking from the living room. "You know he's just going to walk right back in here in ten minutes," Carol mutters.

Daryl peers down at her. "Still, means we got at least five minutes." He rolls on his side and kisses her.

She laughs and pulls away. "That's not long enough. And you got it good last night."

"Mhmhm…Pretty good."

" _Damn_  good," she corrects him, and he smirks. She leans forward to kiss his smirking lips. "Merry Christmas," she whispers. "Will you do me a favor?"

"Fuck ya?"

"No. Go start the coffee, keep Hershey out of the stockings, and give me  _thirty_  minutes more sleep."

"Yes'm." He kisses her, reaches around, squeezes her ass, and then rolls out of bed. 

[*]

Henry is yawning and scratching his stomach when Hershey leads him from his bedroom. "What time is it?" he asks Carol.

"Early," she says as Daryl hands her a hot mug of coffee and then slumps down into his beat-up armchair.

Henry settles down on the couch next to her as the steam rises from her cup. "Is there more of that?"

"Half a cup," Daryl mutters. "In the French press."

"Hershey, go get me that last bit off coffee," Henry insists.

" _Then_  can we open the stockings?"

Carol agrees they can, and the boy rushes to get the coffee. "What's that long one under the tree?" she asks. It's been sloppily wrapped in brown packing paper.

Daryl shrugs. "Just somethin' I got for Hershey."

They're  _all_  for Hershey. Carol and Daryl just get each other stocking stuffers, and Henry is too cool for any of it, anymore, though Carol couldn't help but put a few things in his stocking, too.

They all watch Hershey tear through his stocking first. The boy yanks out a wooden pop gun, which scares the puppies when he fires it, and their mother licks them back to calmness. He tosses the gun on the floor and draws up two rolled up comic books Henry found him, some rock candy Carol made, a pair of mittens, and several match box cars. "What's this?" Hershey asks, holding up an ambulance.

"They used to take people to the hospital in those," Henry tells him.

"Did you ever ride in one?"

"Once, when I was five, and I fell out of a tree and broke my arm."

"Vroom! Vroom! Vroom!" Hershey says as he pushes it across the stone hearth.

"They made a siren noise," Henry tells him. "You know, whooh-wee, whooh-wee, whooh-wee."

"Like firetrucks did?"

"Yep."

Hershey promptly abandons the car and goes and gets Henry's stocking. "You're next."

Henry sets his now empty mug down on the coffee table and pulls a plastic baggie of deer jerky out of his stocking.

"I thought you could use some snacks," Carol says.

Next he slides out the homemade rock candy, then a scarf. "Did you knit this?"

"Do I look like I have time to knit?" Carol replies.

Daryl chuckles.

"I checked it out of storage," Carol explains. "It matches your favorite jacket."

"Yeah. It does. Thanks." Next Henry slides out a wooden backscratcher.

"Since you don't have me to ask anymore," Carol tells him. Henry always has this one spot on his back he would ask Hershey or Carol to get for him.

He smiles. "Thanks, Mom. Merry Christmas. I didn't really know what to get you two, since I'm not exactly at the ornament making age anymore, but I thought I'd cook the Christmas brunch for everyone and clean up after."

Since they eat a big dinner on Christmas Eve, they tend to just eat a hearty brunch on Christmas and otherwise graze on leftovers throughout the day. "That's about the best gift you could give me," she replies.

"Merle next," Hershey insists, and drops the stocking in front of the dog, who growls at it suspiciously, probes inside with his nose, and then yelps and drags out the bone, which he gnaws, tosses, and gnaws again before dropping it too the floor and fishing in the stocking yet again. He grabs it by its toe with his teeth and shakes it, and a tennis ball rolls out and across the wooden floor. Merle barks and bounds after it.

"Sorry, Huck," Herhsey tells his puppy. "You don't have a stocking this year, but Mommy will make you one for next year."

Carol's heart seizes. She glances at Daryl, who smiles lightly. Granted, Hershey's not calling her  _his_  mommy. He's calling her  _Huck's_  mommy, but it's a start.

When Hershey brings Carol her stocking, she goes through it like a giddy school girl. There's a Cooking Light magazine which Daryl must have picked up in a house somewhere, rolled up and shoved inside, and Carol's sure the recipes will be largely useless in this world, but she doesn't say so. She just thanks her husband. There are two little bottles of booze, like the kind you used to get on airplanes – peach vodka and Jack Daniels. "Oooh! Where'd you get these?"

"Riflin' through a lady's purse."

There's an ornament Hershey made in school, and the green and red glitter flecks off on her fingertips as she hangs it proudly on the tree. Next she pulls our a pair of silver chopsticks and laughs.

"Said ya used to wish ya was more cultured," Daryl explains. "'N ya got to travel more."

"I can't wait to use them."

Next she discovers a small, unopened, sealed jar of thyme, which might actually still be good. (She doesn't bother with opened spices these days.) There are three bullion cubes, a can opener (their old one is getting difficult to turn), a package of pencils, and, from deep in the toe of the stocking, she pulls out a felt-covered ring box. She snaps it open and gasps in surprise. Inside rests a gold wedding band.

"Figured since we made it official 'n all," Daryl says.

"Did you get a matching one for yourself?" she asks, still half in shock.

"Can't wear no ring," he says. "It'd get in the way."

"Of what?" she teases with a raised eyebrow. "Picking up the ladies?"

"Pffft. Stahp. Huntin'."

"I guess I'll just have to tatoo my name on your forehead then." She slips the ring out of the box and slides it on her finger. It's loose. "I'll get the blacksmith to size it. Where'd you find it?"

"In a drawer in a bedroom in one of them cabins in the east huntin' grounds. Check out the 'scription."

She slides it off and looks at the engraving on the inside of the ring, tiny letters that wrap almost all the way around –  _Carl and Darlene forever_.

"Fig'rd it was close enough. Merle used to make fun of me 'n call me Darlene."

She laughs. "That's an amazing coincidence."

"Good sign, yeah?"

"I love it." Carol comes over and kisses him and whispers thank you. She'd love to straddle him right there in his chair and show her appreciation, but the boys are there. So instead she goes to get his stocking. His eyes twinkle when she hands it to him.

Carol loves the part of Christmas most of all, because Daryl is like an absolute kid when he goes through his stocking. It doesn't matter what she puts in there, he always reacts with genuine excitement and litany of  _hell yeahs_.

Daryl pulls out a package of strings for his bow – "Hell yeah!"

Deformed rock candy – "Sugar me up!"

A silver harmonica – "Oh yeah!" He blows on it and Merle howls, so he sets it aside and digs out a pack of playing cards. "Oh hell yes! Gonna play us some strip poker tonight, babe."

Carol also loves when he calls her  _babe_ , which isn't often.

"Please," Henry says. "I'm sitting right here."

"What's strip poker?" Hershey asks.

"Not a game for little kids," Henry assures him.

Daryl pulls out a half-full box of 9mm ammunition for his handgun. "Hells to the yes!"

Carol chuckles.

The toy motorcycle elicits a "Fuck yes!"

Carol long ago stopped trying to get him to stop swearing around the kids. Henry and Hershey just know  _they_  aren't allowed to swear around  _her_.

Daryl laughs. "It's a Harley! Look!" he points to it and sets it on it's tiny wheels on the end table, pushes it forward a little and then tells Merle, "Down! Mine!" when the dog tries to bite it.

But it's the bundle of six hand-rolled cigarettes that get the "Hell,  _hell_  yes! Merry Christmas to  _me_!" especially since Carol usually lectures him about smoking.

Hershey goes for the presents under the tree next and shreds through the wrapping paper. He has books, board games, a jig saw puzzle, and a skateboard. The Hilltop doesn't have sidewalks, but some of the kids do skate back and forth on the mansion's cement porch. Daryl's gift to the boy turns out to be a .22 rifle. "My own gun!" he cries.

"Daryl," Carol says. "He's  _seven_."

"This comin' from the woman who taught the kids to knife at story time?"

"But I didn't give them their  _own_  knives."

"Got my first rifle when I's nine, and we didn't even have walkers to worry 'bout."

Carol frowns.

"C'mon! 'S a rifle! Ain't like 's a handgun. His size. N' you  _already_  been takin' him shootin'."

"Yes. Supervised. But I don't want him running around with it." She looks at Hershey. "The gun stays in our closet. No shooting it without supervision."

"Yes'm," Hershey says, in almost perfect imitation of Daryl.

Carol asks Henry to clean up the shredded paper while Hershey occupies himself by examining the contents of one of his new board games.

Carol pats the empty cushion next to herself, and Daryl takes his cue, comes over, and sits beside her. He drapes and arm over her shoulders. Carol kisses his cheek, whispers, "Merry Christmas," and then announces, "I think Daryl and I are going back to bed to take a nice long nap until brunch is ready."

Daryl nuzzles her ear and whispers, "Like the sound of that."

 

[*]

When Henry takes Hershey on a walk to the hen house to gather all their rations of eggs for the week for the big Christmas breakfast, Carol and Daryl retreat to their bedroom. They don't bother to light the fireplace that has dwindled to ash, but they do bury themselves beneath two quilts.

Daryl kisses her, and Carol wraps her arms around his neck to kiss back passionately. When she draws away, he asks, "This means we're gonna fuck, yeah?"

"I thought a man's libido was supposed to decline when he was over fifity."

"Well, I got me a hot wife. 'Sides, been tryin' to make up for lost time. Didn't get laid much in my thirties. Or m' early forties," he admits. "Or twenties. Or m'teens."

"No? How often  _did_  you get laid before you met me?"

His eyes go up, like they do sometimes when he's trying to recall information. "Three, four times a year maybe."

Her eyes twinkle teasingly. "And you expect me to bring your lifetime average up to…what, exactly?"

"Three hundred times a year."

She laughs. "Well, I'm not a mathematician, but I think we'd have to do it over seven hundred times a year to get your lifetime average up that high."

"A'ight. Guess we best get started then." He slides a cool hand under her shirt and cups a breast playfully.

She draws his hand down to her stomach. "I don't want to  _fuck_."

His face falls. "'S Christmas," he says so plaintively and boyishly it makes her smile.

"I don't want to  _fuck_ ," she repeats. "I want to  _make love_  to my  _husband_ , who gave me a beautiful wedding ring today."

Daryl's eyes brighten and that tiny smile – the one she's not sure anyone but her can see – ever so slightly bends the left side of his lips. "Christmas sex?" he asks. "Slow 'n gentle?"

She nods. "And lots and lots of kissing.  _Quiet_  kissing. The boys will be back eventually."

"Mhmhmm…." He kisses her chin, and then her lips, softly, before gently pushing his tounge inside. When he finally draws away, her nipples are hard, despite not being touched, and she's breathing heavily. "'N naked cuddlin'?" he asks. "All pressed up?"

Carol nods and begins to squirm out of her clothes. Daryl, grinning broadly now, yanks his shirt over his head, and soon their bare flesh is hot and flush together, and Daryl's hands are slowly roaming everywhere, with his lips and tongue following. As he moves with licks and nips from her collarbone down to her breasts, Carol balls the sheets into fists and holds on.

[*]

Bellies still full from a hearty brunch of scrambled eggs and leftover wild boar from Christmas Eve dinner, the family lounges in the living room before the fireplace playing Clue.

"I'm ready to make my guess!" Hershey announces.

"Everyone ain't had but one turn," Daryl says.

"But I'm ready!"

"Are you  _sure_?" Carol asks.

"Yep! It was Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick." Hershey grabs the Confidential envelope, slides out the cards, and checks his guess. "I was right!"

"You can't be right, Herhsey," Henry tells him with a hint of irritation. "I have Colonel Mustard."

"Hershey, sweetie," Carol warns him, "remember we talked about cheating?" Hershey was doing a lot of intentional miscounting when he was moving his silver shoe in Monopoly earlier. "Remember how we said if you lie to people, they can't trust you when you're telling the truth?"

"But I  _am_  telling the truth!"

"Herhsey," Daryl scolds sharply. "I got the damn candlestick. We know yer lyin' out yer ass."

"Maybe we don't need to use that particular expression, though," Carol tells him with a raised eyebrow.

"But I  _am_  telling the truth!" Hershey insists, and he shows them the cards. Sure enough, there's Colone Mustard and the candlestick.

"The hell?" Daryl looks at the candlestick in his hand.

"Where'd you get this game?" Henry asks.

"That house where we found the vodka."

"They must have cobbled together cards from two games," Carol speculates. After she goes through the cards, they find three duplicates and three missing one. She gets masking tape and a pencil and re-labels the cards, and off they go for a second round of Clue.

[*]

The music winds to a gradual stop on the hand-cranked phonograph that Daryl brought Carol for Christmas four years ago after raiding the six-room history museum of a small Virginia town. She switches records, cranks it up again, and resumes her spot curled on the couch beneath the afghan, where she's been half reading and half watching Daryl and Hershey lying stomach down on the bear skin rug slamming the plastic levers of their two hungry hippos.

Henry has gone back to his dorm, because the twenty-somethings (including, no doubt,  _Cyndie_ ) are having their own little Christmas celebration, but he's promised to return later tonight for Carol's walnut pie. It's a strange pie, cobbled together through experimentation with limited ingredients, but the entire household agrees it's a  _good_  pie. And tonight, it will be dinner. In the meantime, they'll snack on deer jerky and freeze-dried apples to tide them over.

The puppies are huddled nervously against their mother in response to the clack, clack, clack of the plastic hippos, and Merle is intermittently barking at the violent display of pounding and rolling white balls. A marble pops off the surface of the game.

"Don't let the dogs swallow that!" Carol warns, and Daryl reaches out, slams it beneath his hand, and puts it back in the center before resuming his clacking.

_Slam slam slam slam slam slam slam_  go the hungry hippo's mouths in vain pursuit of the very last marble, which rolls its way languidly in the center. Hershey puts his hands on either side of the board and tilts it slightly, sets it down, and then pounds his lever to snatch up the last marble.

"'S cheatin'!" Darly mutters.

"Only because you didn't think of it," Hershey says. He counts his marbles and slides them back in the center. "Are you going to play this time, auntie?" he asks.

"Maybe next time," Carol says.

"If I gotta be down here," Daryl tells her, "get yer ass down here, too."

Carol closes the book she just opened. "I'll get my ass down there and kick your ass, mister."

"Like to see ya try, sweetheart."

[*]

Henry returns with mail from the pony express. "On Christmas?" Carol asks.

"The pony express guy came to spend Christmas with his girlfriend," Henry explains.  He flops into Daryl's armchair – because Daryl is now on the floor playing Monopoly with Hershey, and opens a letter Carol can tell from the girlish handwriting is probably from Jessica.

She reads through Michonne's Christmas greetings, her update on the kids, and a  _P.S.:_

_Don't know what you were talking about. Ezekiel's good between the sheets. I'm starting with a rating of 7 on a scale of 10, but I think he's trainable._

"So funny?" Daryl asks.

"Just something Michonne said." She folds the letter, tucks it back in its envelope, and it's then she notices the pallor on Henry's face. "Something wrong?"

Henry swallows, folds his letter up, and shoves it deep into his pants pocket. "Everything's fine."

"Some bad news from Jessica?"

"No. Everything's fine," he insists, but he doesn't  _look_  fine, and when she serves the Christmas walnut pie, he doesn't hum as he eats it like he does most years. He seems off somewhere in his mind, though Hershey calls him back by asking him to play a two-person game of Stratego.

"Good time for a smoke," Daryl says, and he clears his plate to the plastic tub before putting on his boots and heading to the back porch.

Carol, still in her warm flannel PJS, steps in her boots by the back door, pulls on a coat, and follows.

"Want one?" Daryl asks with a look of surprise, extending her the cigarette he's just lit.

She shakes her head.

He takes a drag, and the smoke makes grasping gray tentacles in the cold December air. "Gonna work on one of my bows for a bit when I go back in. Can't play no more damn games."

"Hershey really loves that you do that with him."

"Mhm. Well, ain't no one would do it with me when I's a boy. Used to play both sides of the board."

The rays of the sun, which is beginning to set, paints a weblike pattern on the porch railing. "Did you see Henry's face when he read that letter?" Carol asks.

"Mhmhm."

"He looked  _upset_ ," Carol continues. "I think he got some bad news from Jessica. Maybe she broke up with him?"

"Dunno."

"I wonder what that letter said."

"Well, Sherlock, ya ain't gonna crack the case out here. Go inside 'n stay warm."

"Would you talk to him?" she asks.

"He clearly don't want to talk 'bout it."

"But I'm  _worried_  about it. Please?"

"He ain't gonna talk to  _me_."

"Now that he's older, sometimes you get more out of him than I do. He wants to be one of the guys. So maybe he'd talk to you about whatever it is. Please? Try?"

Daryl sighs. "Yeah, a'ight."

"Thank you." She kisses his cheek. "I'll send him out when he's done playing that game with Hershey."


	14. Chapter 14

When Henry comes out, his head bent and his hands buried deep in the pockets of his bulky green winter coat, Daryl is on his second cigarette and the sun has slid below the trees, leaving only the faint echo of a purple glow on the horizon. He's lit the tiki torches, the flames of which dance on either side of the back stairs.

"Mom said you wanted to talk to me?" Henry asks nervously.

Daryl does what he so often does when Carol asks something of him he doesn't want to do. He launches right in, like a man ripping off a bandaid all at once. "Hell's yer problem with that letter ya got? 'Cause this Gloomy Gus bullshit's ruinin' yer mama's Christmas."

Henry raises his head. He slides an ungloved hand out of his pocket and runs it nervously across his mouth but doesn't say anything.

"'S from Jessica?"

Henry nods.

"She break it off with ya?"

Henry shakes his head, swallows, and then shoves his hand back in his pocket.

"Then 's the problem?" Daryl feels like he's playing twenty questions, but he wants to get this over with so Carol can enjoy the rest of her evening.

Henry looks down at the unsanded planks of the porch. He mutters so lowly that Daryl can barely make out his words. "She says she's pregnant."

"The fuck, man!" Daryl's voice echoes a little against the Virginia hills beyond the fenceline of Alexandira. He lowers it to a hiss, so Carol won't be alarmed. "I  _told_  ya not to knock 'er up! 'N ya told Carol ya weren't gonna - "

"We  _weren't_!" Henry insists, raising his head again. "I swear, we weren't! We didn't. I mean…we didn't until the last night I was there for the play. She just kept  _pushing_  and  _pushing_  to go all the way, and I guess…." He shrugs.

" _She_  kept pushin'?"

"I pulled out!"

"Ain't exactly reliable."

"I know…but…I  _did_. I thought I did in time."

"'N ya just had sex the one time?" Daryl asks skeptically.

Henry nods.

"'N  _she_  was pushin' for it?"

"Yeah."

"'N  _now_  she says she's pregnant, a week later?"

Henry nods.

"Did y'all agree you was goin' steady?"

"Steady?" Henry asks.

"Steady."

Henry shakes his head in confusion.

"Only seein' each other," Daryl explains.

"Exclusive, you mean?"

"Whatever the fuck you kids call it," Daryl mutters.

"Well…we didn't really talk about it. I mean, I don't know."

Daryl shakes his head, sucks in his cigarette, and blows the smoke out again. "What she want?"

"Want?"

"'N 'er letter, what she ask ya to do 'bout it?"

"She wants me to move to the Kingdom. Help her take care of it, you know, raise it, hunt for them…I mean, I will. I guess." Henry looks like he's about ready to throw up. "I have to. I mean, I have to step up. I  _will_  step up. I mean…I did this. I have to own my choices. Right?"

"Yeah. Gotta own yer choices. But…Henry, kid….That baby ain't  _yers_."

"What do you mean?"

"Must be another guy who knocked her up. 'S why she pushed ya into sex last time, so you'd think it was yers. I guarantee you she ain't no  _one week_ pregnant and already knows it. She found out 'tween when you were last there and when you came for the play. That baby's gonna be born in seven months."

"Why…why would she  _lie_  to me like that?"

"'Cause she's scared and she don't want to raise the baby alone. And whoever the hell the daddy is, he ain't a step-up guy."

"But…I didn't…" Henry takes in a shaky breath. "She never  _said_  she was seeing anyone else."

"C'mon, kid, she's almost thirty. Ya see her once, twice a month. Think she's been waitin' 'round for ya tween times? 'N ya two ain't 'zactly in love."

"But…" Henry breathes in hard through his nose and bites down on his bottom lip. Finally ,he lets that lip slide free. "I  _do_  love her."

"Fuck," Daryl mutters. He takes a longer drag this time and blows out the smoke shakily. "Sorry. Didn't know that."

"I mean, I  _think_  I do," Henry tells him. "What's it feel like?"

"'S what feel like?"

"Love?"

"Hell if I know."

"Well…you love Carol," Henry says. "Don't you?"

"Well..yeah," Daryl answers. "'Course. Just mean don't know how it feels for normal people."

"Well…how did you  _know_  you loved her?"

"Dunno…'cause…felt sick when she was with Zeke. Just the thought of it made me sick. 'N I's willin' to  _stay_  sick, if that'd mean she'd be happy. 'Cept I didn't think she  _was_ happy. 'N that made me sick, too. 'N…well… felt a diff'rn kind of sick whenever she'd touch me or smile at me. Not a bad sick, really…just a…dunno. Stomach thing. Didn't know what it was for the longest damn time."

"So…you knew because you felt  _sick_?"

"Guess 's why they call it lovesick."

"And that's all?" Henry asks.

"'N also…ain't no one else in the world gets me like 'er. Tolerates me like her. Hell,  _believes_  in me. 'N ain't no one else in the world I'd rather have my back 'n a war. Ain't no one else in the world I'd rather sit in silence with."

Henry seems to consider all this. "Maybe I  _don't_  love Jessica."

"Yer dick loves 'er," Daryl explains. "And yer ego loves 'er. Them ain't the parts that matter." Smoke curling off his cigarette, he taps his forehead, and then his chest over his heart.

"And your stomach?" Henry asks with a wary smile.

"Pffft. Yeah. 'N yer stomach."

Henry sighs and leans over the balcony. "So what do I do? I mean…it's not like I can ask for a paternity test. And that baby's going to need a father. But I don't think I'm  _old enough_  to be a father. A big brother, yeah…I can do that pretty well…but…a  _father_?"

"Dunno what to tell ya, Henry. Gonna have to talk to 'er 'bout it."

"You're  _sure_  she's lying?" Henry asks skeptically.

"Damn convenient, the timing, don'tchya think?"

"But she's so  _sweet_."

"Sweet 'n…" He almost says stupid, but he stops himself, in case the woman ends up his daughter-in-law. The thought hits him like a slap across the face, and suddenly he realizes why Carol was so concerned about the relationship. Daryl's thought was it was none of their business, but it  _is_  their business, because Henry's family will be  _their_  family.

"And what?"

"Scared. She's scared, 'n she knows ya got morals."

Henry stands straight. "I get the impression you might have had this happen to you before."

"Nah," Daryl says. "Happened to my brother. 'Cept she didn't think he was a step-up guy in the daddy department. Just thought he'd give her money for an abortion because the guy who knocked her up wouldn't give 'er a dime."

"So what did he do?"

"Merle asked her to marry 'em. Wanted to keep the baby, be it's daddy. Ain't at all what she expected. Ain't what  _anyone_  expected. 'N she said no, and he got wild 'bout it…'n that's when she told 'em wasn't really his."

"Jesus," Henry mutters.

"Yeah. Merle went on a huge bender after that. Further provin' he wasn't daddy material. But he  _wanted_  to be." Daryl sighs. "Ain't many times in his life when he  _wanted_  to do the right thing, but that was one of 'em."

"I just don't know what - "

Henry falls abruptly silent because Carol opens the backdoor. Daryl's afraid it's because she heard him yelling  _fuck_  earlier, but it's not. "Julie's here," Carol says. "She's concerned because she stopped by John's trailer to return some of the things he left in the cabin, and he's still not back from hunting this morning. And the sun's already set. Jacob hasn't seen him all day."

Daryl's heart thuds agaisnt its earthly cage, and he tosses his half-finished cigarette on the porch before roughly grinding it out beneath his heel. John left to track those bobcats at daybreak. That's too long to be out hunting alone.

Maybe he came back unobserved, though, and he's with that redhead. The woman  _did_  show interest in him, Daryl knows, though John hasn't slept with her – not because she wasn't willing, but because he's still feeling guilty about letting his marriage blow up in smoke. But Daryl figures it's not long before John's need for an ego stroking overcomes his need to wallow in guilt. "She check the dorm?"

"No," Carol says, "but Jacob did."

"He's not with Ciara," comes Julie's voice from beside Carol as she wedges herself in the doorway. "If that's what you're thinking. Jacob and I asked around.  _No one's_  seen him."

"Then I'll go track 'em," Daryl assures her.

"I'll go with Daryl," Henry insists.

"No, stay with Herhsey, please," Carol says. " _I'm_  going. I'm mayor. I should organize and head the search party. We'll send out a team."

[*]

There are few visible stars in the sky, just the light glimmer of the white quarter moon, as the search party gathers by the front gates of Alexandria. John's son Jacob makes sure he has a round chambered in his rifle and then brushes back a shock of flaxen hair. Enid double checks the contents of her medical bag and flings it over her shoulder.

Carol adjusts the longbow she learned to use during her stint in the Kingdom, before Daryl spirited her away to the Hilltop. She turns on her walkie talkie to make sure it's working and then clicks it off again. Cyndie wears the second walkie talkie on her hip. Henry, a rifle slung over his shoulder, jogs up beside Cynide in the circle and nods to her

"You're supposed to be with Hershey," Carol says.

"I got Barbara to watch him." When Carol shoots him a scolding look, Henry says, "I've hunted with John since I was twelve. He's like an uncle to me. I'm  _coming_."

Carol doesn't protest further.

Rosita joins the group gathered at the gates. "I heard there's a man out there?"

"Yes," Carol tells her. "John. He left this morning and hasn't come back."

"I thought no one would be out on Christmas!" Rosita says anxiously.

"He wanted to track some bobcats," Jacob says.

Rosita tugs nervously at the pony tail spilling out the tail of her green baseball cap. "Listen, two of my scouts returned from a week-long expedition this morning. They reported spying a small herd of about seventy walkers on the move from a subrub to the west. They were flooding from the housing development into the woods. The herd was far enough away when my scouts left them, and it's Christmas, so I was planning to wait to send the eradicators out tomorrow morning to deal with it. But if we go deep enough into the west hunting grounds…it's possible we may run into it."

Carol rests a hand instinctively on the hilt of her knife. "So it's possible John ran into it."

"Oh shit," Jacob mutters, and Julie gasps and places a hand over her mouth.

"We'll start off as one search party," Carol tells the assembled team. "And if the sign diverges, or it's unclear, we'll break off to cover more ground. But no more than two groups. If there's a herd out there, we need fighting numbers."

Julie, who is holding a torch, hands Daryl one of John's shirts for Merle to sniff and then, swallowing hard, turns to Carol. "I know John and I had a rocky marriage and a bad break-up, but…he's the father of my children." She doesn't say  _child_ , even though only one has survived. "We endured the Collapse together. I've known him since I was  _nineteen_."

"We'll find him," Carol assures her.

"It's going to be all right, Mom." Jacob puts a hand on Julie's shoulder. He takes the lit torch she's holding. "Just go back to your cabin and try to get some rest. We'll bring him home."

Daryl hands John's crumpled shirt to another hunter named Marcus, who lowers it to his own blood hound Buster. The dog buries its face in the cloth, and its dark black nose crinkles as it inhales the scent. The gates roll open, and the dogs are off, with the search party close behind.

[*]

Once buried almost a mile in the woods, the dogs disagree. Buster continues to sniff his nose down a trail while Merle stands still in his tracks, lowers his head, sniffs, and looks confused. Merle circles around Daryl's legs, yelps once, sits on his haunches, and whines.

"This way," Marcus says when Daryl stands still. The sixty-something, dark -skinned hunter points down the trail his hound is sniffing. Jacob sweeps the torch over the trail to reveal a faint set of bobcat prints.

"Merle don't smell nothin' that way," Daryl insists.

"But the bobcat tracks lead the way Buster is sniffing," Marcus says. "And you said John was tracking them."

"Merle don't smell nothin' that way," Daryl repeats.

Marcus scratches the tightly cut, gray-white hair atop his head and laughs. "You're as stubborn as your dog. Merle doesn't smell anything any other way either. All the signs point east."

Daryl sweeps the beam of his solar flashlight – which he sets in direct sunlight to charge daily - over the forest floor, stirs some leaves with his boot, and crouches. He comes up and points into the woods. "'Nother set of tracks goes that way. The cats split up here. But I don't see John's prints. Must not of stepped in the mud. Can't know which cat he followed."

"Probably the trail Buster's trying to run down."

Daryl looks down at Merle. "Which way John go?"

Merle whimpers, lays down on the forest floor, and puts his head on his paws.

"Think we should go west," Daryl insists.

"We should go east," Marcus replies.

"Well, it sounds like this is where we split up," Carol says. "I'll stick with Daryl. Cyndie, you go with Marcus so we can stay in contact." She pats the walkie talkie on her hip, and Cyndie nods.

"I'll go with Marcus, too," Henry says, and walks over to stand beside Cyndie.

Jacob seems torn between the two hunters, not sure which to follow, but eventually he joins Daryl.

"Enid, come with us," Carol says, because she trusts Daryl's intuition more than the other hunter's. If they find John, they may find him in a bad state, and they're going to need their medic.

Enid shifts the rifle on her right shoulder and the medical bag on her left and steps forward to join them.

"Like I said," Rostia tells them. "That herd was coming from the west. They weren't moving fast, but if you end up another two miles in, you might need more manpower." She clicks on the flashlight beneath her scope, sweeps the light over the forest floor toward the west, and then clicks it off. "Give the other party the torch," she tells Jacob. "Daryl and I have lights."

Jacob hands the torch over to Henry. "Good luck, man," Henry tells him. "One of us will find him."

Jacob nods, but he's starting to look nervous.

[*]

Daryl cautiously follows the sign – mostly disturbed earth and the occasional bobcat print - for a good mile until he finally finds the faint print of bootprint. He shines the flashlight straight on it. It's sunk deep into the mud, so that the treads have pressed a pattern on the dirt, and even the circle in the center, with the brand logo in the middle, can be half made out.

"You were right," Jacob says. "Those are my dad's boots."

"Of course he was right," Carol replies.

"Merle's nose knows what it don't know," Daryl insists.

Despite the heaviness of the moment, Carol smiles. "Try saying that five times fast."

A few steps later, Merle sniffs the ground, walks forward sniffing, yelps, and then runs off into the woods. The search party jogs after him, Daryl and Carol in front, side by side. Carol lifts her walkie talkie as she runs, contacts Cyndie, and tells her they've found John's trail. She can hear Cyndie ordering her half of the search party to turn around.

"We're going to keep moving," Carol tells her. "Catch up with us." She clicks the walkie talkie back on her belt.

They push through brush and crunch over sticks as the hazy beam of Daryl's flashlight scatters over the ground in front.

They come to an abrupt stop, side by side, several yards away from a walker that rises from its hunched position and turns with a piece of flesh dangling from its mouth. Carol smoothly draws an arrow from her quiver, loads her long bow, and fires. The arrow squishes into the walker's forehead. Its knees give it out, and the creatures slumps onto the frozen, dead leaves like a rag doll.

By now, the others have drawn up around them. Jacob grips his rifle and a strangled, worried sound escapes his throat. "Was it eating my dad?"

"No," Daryl tells him. "Bobcat. You hold the light." He hands over his flashlight to Jacob, swings off his crossbow, and, muscles bulging beneath his leather jacket, yanks back to load it.

"No firing guns if we can help it," Carol says as Daryl readies his bow. "We don't want to draw more walkers."

Rosita nods her agreement, shoulders her rifle, and draws her knife. Enid draws hers knife as well, leaving her rifle swinging gently from her shoulder.

They creep cautiously toward the fallen walker, Jacob lighting the way. The beam of the flashlight sweeps out over the fallen walker and to the mangled, picked over bobcat that has been almost entirely stripped. And then the light sweeps beyond the bobcat, between the trees, and across the bodies of several more fallen walkers.

Daryl studies the sign. "Looks like John 'n the walkers found the bobcat at 'bout the same time," Daryl says. "'N most of 'em left the bobcat to run after John. He shot back at 'em as he ran."

"Do you think it's that herd?" Carol asks Rosita. "You said there were seventy?"

"About. We were going to take care of it in the morning. I didn't know John was out here. I didn't think  _anyone_  would be out on Christmas afternoon."

"No one blames you," Carol assures her, though Jacob does shoot Rosita a sickened look.

Carol recovers her arrow and holds it in one hand, her bow in the other, ready to load and shoot again at a moment's notice.

The trail is easier to follow now. It's a trail of fallen walker bodies. "Did you see yer dad 'fore he left this morin'?" Daryl asks Jacob as they follow the path of shot-down, decaying monsters. "See how much ammo he brought with 'em?"

Jacob shakes his head.

"The weekly ammo ration for hunters is thirty rounds," Carol says. "And it's toward the end of the week."

"He might've had more," Daryl says. "Hunters been searchin' cabins all over the woods, dozens of 'em."

"And not turning in any of the loot?" Carol asks.

Daryl shrugs. "Ain't on an official supply run when we's out here. Ya drank John's wine, didn't ya? Got that from a cabin."

"Yes, but I didn't know you were  _regularly_  raiding cabins out here.  _Dozens_  of them. On the clock. I thought you just came across one a couple times a month." That's borderline between an official and a personal act. She's not as much a stickler for the rules as Aaron, but regular raiding without sharing could cause some grumbling if the populace were to know.

"We always turn over meds if we find 'em," Daryl says. "But the ammo rations ain't right. Thirty rounds. Hell. Regular folk get ten, and they don't need to shoot shit."

"Defense only gets forty a week, and we have to take down  _herds_ ," Rosita says.

"Well there's a formal way to lodge your complaints, you know," Carol tells them. "And to have the Council reconsider."

"Didn't want a fight 'bout it," Daryl mutters.

Carol shakes her head and steps over a fallen walker. The trail of bodies stops.

"John ran out of ammo here, I reckon," Daryl says. ""S just runnin' now."

They follow the path the herd has beaten down through the woods. Jacob sweeps the flashlight left and right, up and down, over the brush and icy leaves as they walk. Eventually, the beam freezes in a single spot. "Is that walker blood or human blood?" he asks. Dots of light shimmer in a dried splotch of red-black and then sweep up over a dripping, limping trail. "It doesn't look like walker blood," Jacob says shakily. "Is it?"

Daryl doesn't answer. Instead, he whistles at Merle and then takes off running along the dripping trail of blood.

The search party runs after him.


	15. Chapter 15

Merle takes the lead, which is good, because in the darkness it's hard to follow the occasional splotches of dripped blood with only the beam of the flashlight. It's easier to see the dog. From the way the blood trails across the forest floor, it seems to Daryl that John's injury must be in his lower left leg. That means if he's been bitten by a walker, they can save him with an amputation, but it also means John might have a hard time outrunning the herd. 

Daryl flies fast on the heels of his hound, his heart thudding in his chest, the sound of Carol's nearby breaths echoing in his ears. They crash through brush, leap over fallen tree logs, thud into mud, and swerve around trees until Daryl skids to a sudden stop. The unholy, hive-like sound of gnashing and growling reaches his ears.

Merle stops and barks once, and Daryl shushes the dog, which falls instantly silent except for a single, guilty whine. Carol freezes beside Daryl and holds out her hand as a stop sign to the others behind her. They slow to a jog and then creep up quietly beside them.

"Light down," Daryl hisses, and Jacob turns it down toward the forest floor so the beam is less obvious.

"Is that the sound of a herd?" Jacob whispers nervously. When Daryl nods, he asks, "Are we going to head straight into it?"

"Got to," Daryl says. "If'n we want to find your dad."

"Then we need to be ready to kill," Enid whispers.

"There's probably over fifty left, given how many John shot," Rosita murmurs.

They sound off, counting their arrows and bullets. They don't have enough. "Should we wait for the others?" Enid asks. "They're coming this way. They'll follow the trail."

"Ain't no time for that," Daryl says. "Here 'em thrashin'? They're tryin' to get at fresh meat. They got 'em cornered somewhere."

"We go now, and we take them down," Carol insists. "Spend our munitions first, and then to blades. No sense worrying about noise at this point, since we're coming to them. We have to aim well. We don't have shots to spare."

"Is your ammo .223?" Jacob asks Enid, and when she says it is, he insists, "Give it to me. You shine the light."

"I'm a good shot, you know," she tells him.

"I'm not bad either, but someone has to light the way. You're the medic, and my dad's going to need you. So better I cover you."

Reluctantly, and probably more to avoid wasting time arguing than anything else, Enid unloads he rifle, shoves the bullets in Jacob's palm, and takes the flashlight.

"Ready?" Rosita asks, and everyone nods.

Daryl whistles, Merle barks violently, and they rush up the woody hill toward the sound of hungry walkers.

[*]

Several walkers must pull away from their trapped prey in response to the noisy approach because dozens begin to lurch down the hill. Arrows and bullets fly and walkers fall. Some trip on their own, tumble, and have to be dispensed with as they slip slide down the leaves and mud.

Enid streaks the beam of the flashlight back and forth like a search light, which in Carol's mind creates an almost strobe-like effect: walker in front, walker vanishes, walker in front, walker vanishes. The lack of consistent light makes aiming more difficult, but the swaying of the beam also means that all of them have at least some chance to make out their surroundings.

Carol is reloading her bow when the swish of the beam reveals a walker just three feet in front of her, jaws open and teeth set to gnash. A gunshot echoes in her ears, and the creature slumps to the ground before her. All goes to black, until the sweep of Enid's flashlight reveals a walker six yards away. Carol sends her freshly loaded arrow flying.

Because Rosita has a flashlight attached to her scope, she covers the others and takes down walkers when they come too close, making quick work of her fifteen rounds, and slaying precisely fifteen walkers in the process.

When Jacob's rifle dry fires, Rosita shoves hers at him. "Use the light. Light my way!" She rips her knife from her belt and runs to join Carol and Daryl. Daryl lets fly his last arrow, drops his bow, and simultaneously draws two knives from either side of his belt with a rasp.

Carol gets off two more arrows before tossing her bow and unsheathing her knife. The trio thrashes and stabs its way through the herd as Jacob and Enid sweep lights left and right, up and down the hill.

Hearts pounding in theirs ears, breath growing ragged, and Merle barking and snapping to lead the walkers away when they get too close to one of the family, they work their way up the hill to finish off the herd.

At last, they reach a tree where about half a dozen walkers remain congregated, clawing at the bark and thrashing their jowls at something up above.

While Rosita and Daryl go in to stab, Carol looks up the long, tall length of the tree, hoping to find John safely hiding out in its branches, but instead she spies the white glint of whiskers reflected in the moonlight and hears the screech-like growl of a bobcat, which seeing its pursuers mostly killed, now leaps down to a lower branch. It then leaps hissing onto Carol and uses her as a kind of springboard. The creature's hind claws shred her jacket and shirt around her left shoulder in the process. The frightened feline thuds on its side on the ground, scurries howling to its feet and tears its way through the forest.

Carol, stunned from the unexpected leap, doesn't sense the approaching walker until it's almost bent its head to bite, but Daryl's blade slides into its head from the side. He rips it out, black with walker blood, and the creature falls at Carol's feet. She's blinking when he puts a hand on her cheek and slides his thumb across her cool flesh. "Ya a'ight?"

She nods and takes in the now quiet surroundings.

"That cat scratch you up?"

"I don't know. I don't feel it."

He sheaths his knife and anxiously pulls down the coat around her shoulder. Enid comes over with the flashlight and shines the beam on Carol's flesh. "Just a superficial scratch," Enid says. "It won't even need stitches. We'll put some topical antibiotic on it later."

Jacob hands the rifle back to Rosita. "I hoped it was my dad up there."

"Me, too," Daryl agrees.

"Does this mean he outran the herd, though?" Jacob asks.

"Maybe," Daryl replies. "But he's bleedin' bad. Might be bit."

"We've got to find him and amputate right away if he's going to have any chance of survival," Enid cautions.

Daryl and Carol backtrack to quickly recover their arrows from the fallen walkers. Back at the tree, Daryl yells, "Merle! Sniff 'em out!"

The dog barks and runs on, leading them sideways along the hill for quite some distance before picking up a scent and then steering them up the trail.

It isn't long before they find a cabin. The last of the herd surrounds it, having stumbled its way up the porch stairs. Five walkers bump against the front door, and five more around a window. Just as the search party arrives, the glass of the window shatters, and the walkers begin to crawl inside.

Carol and Daryl make quick work of the creatures as their arrows woosh and thunk. Daryl runs straight for the door, which he can't open. "'S blocked!"

"John!" Carol yells into the open window. She strips Enid of the flashlight and shines it inside. The light lands on the barrel in John's mouth. He must have held back one bullet for himself, just in case he was overrun. "Don't!" she shouts, and fears it's too late, because as she sweeps the flashlight down, she can see his finger pressing the trigger forward.

But his finger goes slack. John slides the gun from his mouth. "Carol?" he calls.

"It's us! We're here! Stay put!"

Daryl throws himself, shoulder first, against the door.

"Don't bother with the door!" Carol calls. "He pulled a table in front of it." She brushes the shattered glass aside with her leather-jacket-clad arm and crawls through the window. The glow of the flashlight reveals John sitting against the far cabin wall, his bottom pants leg shredded and black with dry blood. A trail of blood drips on the wooden planks from the door to his resting spot. The light also caresses a stack of notebook paper and a discarded pencil that has rolled away from the pages, which are covered with fresh, flowing script.

Carol hastens to remove the furniture that blocks the door. The others rush in, Jacob shouting "Dad!", Rosita lighting up the way with the flashlight on her rifle, and Enid running forth, falling to her knees, and throwing open her medical bag. Daryl, taking in the surroundings, enters last and most cautiously

Enid pulls out a brown bottle of alcohol from her bag and then a saw. "We have to amputate."

"What?" John cries, sitting up straighter against the wall. "No, whoa,  _wait_! Are you  _sure_  you can't save it? The bites aren't that bad! They just have little teeth!"

"Are you  _kidding_?" Enid cries as she yanks out her knife to cut off his pants at the knee above the wound. "You know what happens with walker bites. If we don't amputate, the infection will spread, and – "

"I wasn't bit by a walker!" John cries. "I was bit by two bobcats. And scratched up. They were trying to escape the walkers and must have thought I was one."

"Oh." Having torn away his pants, Enid now examines the wound.

"Some of the walkers started feasting on one of the bobcats," John says, "and some went after the second bobcat, and then some went after me. I killed as many as I could, but I got down to my last bullet. I made it here, locked the door, managed to blockaded it." He nods to the papers. "Started writing my last goodbye."

Jacob crouches down and picks up the papers, which begin,  _Dear Julie,_

John snatches them back. "Well don't let your mother see that now!" He balls the paper in his fist as Enid pours alcohol on a cloth.

"Well, if it's stuff you wanted to say to her when you thought you were going to die," Jacob says, "maybe you should try saying it to her while you're still alive."

"It won't make one lick – OW!"

"Sorry," Enid mutters. "I have to clean it to see how bad it is." She pours more alcohol directly on the wound.

John thuds his head back against the cabin wall and hisses. "Won't make one lick of difference, son," he mutters. "When I thought I was dying, I could maintain the fantasy that it  _would_  make a difference to her. But I can't do that if I'm going to live."

Enid applies pressure to his wound.

"Well, if you've already given up the fantasy," Jacob reasons, "then it can't hurt either way." He snatches the papers back out of his father's hand and shoves them in the pocket of his own jacket. John glares but makes no move to get them back. He's distracted by the pain and hisses and writhes beneath the white cloth being pushed down by Enid's palm.

"I have to make sure the bleeding is stopped," Enid says. "Carol, can you assist? I need the needle and thread." As Carol pulls out what she needs, Enid looks back at John. "This is going to take a lot of thick stitches, and I'm afraid you might look like Frankenstein for awhile, but you'll live. Also…the stitching going to hurt."

"Daryl," John pleads. "Check out those cupboards and see if there isn't a little medicinal liquid in one of them for me if you would be so kind."

Daryl rummages through the cupboards, tossing down long expired cans and weevil-infested flour and sugar until he finds, back behind some canisters, a bottle of whiskey. He pulls it open with a pop and thrusts it in John's hand. "A true friend you are, good sir," John tells him, and takes a huge swig, and then another, and another, and says, "Woooh!"

Daryl takes the bottle back, and Jacob comes closer on his knees and extends his father his hand, who grips it to help deal with the pain as Enid sews him up.

Between John's third and fourth grunt of pain, Daryl tells him, "Merry Fuckin' Christmas, buddy." And then he takes a swig of the whiskey himself.

[*]

The other half of the search party clamors up the stairs of the porch and spills into the cabin, weapons ready, and lowers them when they see the scene. "Is he all right?" Henry asks.

"He's going to be," Enid replies.

Henry helps to make a stretcher from blankets they find in the cabin and small branches he and Enid saw from a couple of trees. While they work, John insists he can just limp home.

"'S probably four miles," Daryl says. "Get on the damn stretcher. 'Sides, yer drunk now."

Daryl's demand is probably a good thing, because John passes out for a good three miles of the hike. Back inside the gates of Alexandria, Julie is waiting anxiously for her ex-husband and hugs him after Daryl helps him to his feet. John leans heavily on his good leg and hugs back hesitantly for a moment, draws away.  John looks around at the weary search party. "Sorry for the trouble I caused." He limps off toward his trailer.

Henry walks Cyndie back to the dorm where they both live, and Carol trails after John to ask if he'd like to stay at their cabin tonight. "In case there are any complications."

"Thank you for the generous offer, but I'll be fine."

"You scared people disappearing like that," she tells him as he draws to a stop by his trailer stairs. "I know you're hurt, emotionally, and maybe you don't really care all that much right now whether you live or die, but other people  _do_. Daryl does. Your son does."

John nods. "Point taken." He opens the door to his trailer. "But I'll be fine, really."

"Dinner tomorrow then? At our house?"

"Yes, ma'am. I'd appreciate that."

[*]

In their bedroom, where Merle jumps up on the bed and curls himself at the foot, Daryl lights the fire as Carol changes into her warm flannel pajamas. "Did you get a chance to talk to Henry?" she asks.

"Got interrupted," he mutters. "Talk to 'em tomorrow."

Daryl lets that little white lie slip because he's tired. So very tired. The relief at finding John alive has unwound his tension, but that tension took a lot out of him, and he just wants to sleep. He knows if he tells Carol what he knows, she'll be up half the night worrying aloud.

But when she settles into bed and pushes back against him, like she does when she wants to be cuddled, and he obligingly slings an arm around her, he begins to feel guilty. "Did talk to 'em," he admits. "Jessica's knocked up."

"What?!" Carol sits up abruptly, turns up the oil lamp – and looks down at Daryl.

Daryl sighs and drags himself into a sitting position. "Ain't Henry's."

"Who's is it then?"

"Dunno. But she 'n Henry only had sex once. Last week when we was there."

"And she  _already_  knows she's pregnant?" Carol asks doubtfully.

"'Zactly."

"Maybe her period didn't start when she expected, and she only  _thinks_  she's pregnant. Maybe it will start in a day, or maybe it  _already_  has since she wrote the letter, and this will all just be a false alarm."

"Or maybe she's knocked up by some other guy," Daryl suggests. "'N she knew 'fore she pushed Henry to go all the way."

"She pushed him?" Carol asks.

"Mhmhm. 'S what he said. Didn't seem to be lyin'."

"Or maybe she doesn't think she's pregnant at all," Carol speculates, "and she just wants to get her talons in Henry. He's a pretty good catch. He's loyal. He's gentle. He can hunt. He can fight. He's a good-looking young man." She covers her face with her hands and growls before dropping them. "What did he say he was going to do?"

"Didn't say."

"What did you  _advise_?" she asks.

"Told 'em to talk to 'er. Find out what the hell's really goin' on."

Carol throws herself back on the bed, settles her hands on her stomach, and says, "I thought she was too dumb to be so conniving."

"Ain't exactly the most brilliant plan. Dumb ass bitches do it all the time."

"All the time, huh?" she turns her head to look at him.

He settles on his side, his head on a hand, facing her. "Ain't never happened to  _me_ ," he clarifies. "Happened to Merle. Happened to my daddy, too."

"What? You mean, Merle was only your half-brother?"

"No. Nah. Not my mama. Some other woman after my mama was dead. He married her, too. 'N then kid came out half black."

Carol blinks. "What? You had a stepmother?"

"Nah. I's twenty when he married her. I's  _long_  gone. An old friend of Merle's from the neighborhood called 'em 'n told 'em our daddy was 'n jail for smackin' his new wife up when he found out he wasn't the daddy. She called the cops on 'em. Pressed charges. My mama never did. He wanted bail money."

"And did you bail him out?"

"Hell no. Just left 'em. Heard he ended up spending six months in the slammer, but we never saw 'em again. 'Cept in his coffin. Same friend of Merle's called us when he drank 'emself to death."

Carol sighs, rolls toward him, drapes an arm around him, and kisses him gently. She presses her forehead against his. "Life's better than it's ever been for either of us, isn't it?"

"Mhmhm."

"At least it was until this Henry mess." She draws back and shakes her head. "I'm disappointed in him. He said he was gong to  _wait_."

"Don't be. Kid wants to do the right thing. Can't spect 'em to be too smart 'bout woman. Ain't never had one 'fore."

"I'm going to ride over to that Kingdom and see that wo – "

"- No, ya ain't. Yer gonna let him handle it."

Carol sighs again. "I hate it when you're right about parenting things."

"'Sides, election's comin' up soon. Can't leave now. But I'll go with 'em when he goes."

"Thank you." Carol kisses him again. She rolls onto her back and stares up at the ceiling. "I'm going to be up all night now."

"Mhmhm."

She throws off the blanket and stands. "Might as well get some work done." She pads across the wooden floor and heads out the door.

Daryl rolls over toward the fireplace. That wasn't so bad. She's going to be up, but she's not going to be pacing around  _him_. He closes his eyes, hears Merle whine once, and then drifts off to sleep.

[*]

Carol finds Henry and Jacob depositing their kill – another bobcat - at the butcher's table the next afternoon and asks to speak to him privately. Looking uneasy, Henry follows her to a picnic bench beside an oil-can bonfire that still flickers faintly from earlier when someone was lunching there. "Sit down," Carol tells him.

He plops himself reluctantly on the bench, and she takes the bench on the other side. Her suede-coat clad arms on the cold table, she leans forward, "You told me you were going to wait."

He sighs. "Daryl told you everything?"

"Of course he told me."

"I tried to wait," he says.

"You can't let someone pressure you into doing things you don't want." Carol always imagined this was a conversation she would have with Sophia, not with a  _son_.

"Well…I can't honestly say I didn't  _want_  it."

"Things you've determined not to do for very sensible reasons, then."

"Look, I'm sorry. I did what I did and now…" He shakes his head. "Now she says she's pregnant. Do you think Daryl's right? Do you think it's not mine?"

"What I feel like is that I've done a terrible job with your sex education. And like maybe our new Director of Education needs to expand the biology curriculum."

"I know how a woman gets pregnant," he insists.

"So you know the egg can be fertilized within a few minutes, or it can take up to five days? And you know that implantation occurs five to ten days after that? And you know it's not very likely she can be sure she's pregnant by you a week after you had sex?"

"I don't understand why she'd  _lie_ ," Henry says somewhat despondently.

"For the reason Daryl said, maybe, or maybe because she just wants to get you to marry her. Has there been any talk of marriage between you two?"

Henry traces and indentation in the wood with his fingertip. "She asked me if I thought I'd get married someday, and I said, yeah, maybe when I'm twenty-one or twenty-two."

Carol asks a question that makes her very uncomfortable, because she's half afraid the answer is yes. "Henry, do you love this woman?"

"I don't know. I mean…I like her. But I don't think about her that much when we're not together. The way I think about – " He stops suddenly.

"Cyndie?"

"Enid."

" _Enid?_ "

"I  _know_  she's with Alden. I know that. And he's way older than me, and she doesn't want some kid like me. She's not like Jessica. She likes older men. And she's probably going to marry him. I'm not an idiot. I gave up that idea. But ever since I was fourteen..." He trails off. "Anyway, it doesn't matter."

"I thought you liked Cyndie."

"I do. Just not like I like Enid. I like a lot of women. I could probably manage to be happy with just about _any_ woman. If she didn't  _lie_  to me."

"Even if Jessica wasn't lying to you, do you really think you could be happy with her? Living with her? Being  _family_  with her?"

"I don't know," he admits. "Maybe? Mom, I want to do the right thing. I wish someone would just tell me what the right thing is."

Carol extends a hand across the table and pats his. "You're going to have to figure that out on your own."


	16. Chapter 16

John joins Carol and Daryl for dinner and tells them a likely embellished tale of his attempts to outrun the herd.

"How's the leg?" Carol asks.

"It still hurts, but I should be back to hunting tomorrow."

"I don't know if that's such a good idea, John," Carol says. "Didn't Enid say you needed to keep pressure off it for most of the day?"

"I've got to keep myself busy."

"Well, I might have some lighter work for you, if you want to help Amanda with updating the inventory tomorrow."

"Amanda? She's the widow?"

"Yes." Her fifty-nine-year old husband was the first man to die of natural causes since Carol became mayor of Hilltop. He had a massive heart attack in his sleep one year ago. It was a shock to Amanda, who didn't even know he was having heart palpitations because he hadn't told her, despire Sidiqq's urging to do so.

"Hmmm…I suppose I could help out."

"I mean, she's no red head…" Carol teases. "But she's closer to your age."

[*]

John pushes off the planks of the front porch with the foot of his good leg and sets the chair to rocking. Daryl eases down in the rocking chair next to his.

"Jacob gave my death bed letter to Julie this morning. I sure wish he hadn't."

"Why?" Daryl replies. "What 's say?"

John sighs out a light gray cloud of smoke. "Just every damn thing I'm sorry for. All the ways I helped make it go wrong. That I should have tried harder." He shrugs. "And that I was about to die loving her because…hell…she's the only woman I ever  _have_  loved. Can't say the same for her. Her heart's moved on."

Daryl looks out over the dirt road to the closed-up school house across the way, where Julie still teaches, even though she's been replaced as the Director of Education by eveyrbody's-mom Barbara. "Sure she loves that asshole?"

"She's letting him live with her, isn't she? Sharing her bed with him." John grits his teeth and takes a drag before hissing out the smoke. "I wrote that I hope he treats her better than I did. And then I left my Remington and my booze to Jacob. And my dog to you."

"Me?"

"You've already been housing Daisy, and she likes you. I also left you my Winchester."

"To me?"

"Wish I hadn't made it now, don't you?"

Daryl smirks. "That  _is_  a beautiful gun."

[*]

The next morning, Daryl packs his knapsack to the brim with goods for trade, kisses Carol and Hershey goodbye, waits for Henry to join him at the gate, and then saddles his motorcycle to head out for the Kingdom.

A fresh, thin layer of snow dusts the ground, but there's no ice, and he glides across the decaying asphalt of the highway gracefully, the electric whir of the engine humming in his ears, which are red-tipped by the cold.

They stop to loot a few houses in a different development this time, taking a slight detour two miles off the highway to investigate. They pick up a few things, but not much – the houses have been largely picked over, probably at the start.

At the last house, Henry ties his horse to the post of a staircase leading up to a wrap around porch, pours some water from his canteen into an abandoned hub cap, and sets it down on the ground for the animal to drink. He looks around for any trace of walkers before following Daryl inside to rummage.

"Rich neighborhood," Daryl mutters as they walk into a large study with built-in bookcases. "Big ass houses." The houses are arranged one per acre, unlike most of the developments they come across, which try to jam in three. The brick and wood houses are all designed in their own unique styles, each one is different than the last, instead of the cookie-cutters they're used to seeing.

"Maybe the supply runners have been here?" asks Henry. "Maybe we should have checked the map first instead of wasting our time."

"Didn't see it on the map."

"Well, you better put it on the map, then."

Daryl pulls out his latest copy of the ever-expanding map the Hilltop has drafted thus far. His copy is two months old, and he won't get a new one until some time in January, so it might not be up to date. It's possible they've just retraced ground another Hilltoper has already explored.

There's a woman who's job it is just to be a copyist, a former artist who didn't have very many survival skills, and she's makes periodic copies of the map for the supply runners, hunters, fishermen, traders, defenders, and scouts. They add to it what they find, and the master copy is kept in the Council Chambers and routinely updated by the cartographer, an old man who used to be a history professor at George Mason University. Daryl smooths the crinkled map out on the great, cherry desk. "Got a pencil?"

Henry rummages through the desk drawers until he finds one and hands it to him. Daryl marks the development on the map, with an S12, which indicates that it has 12 houses, all of which have been scavenged.

"Such a waste of time," Henry mutters.

Daryl glances up at him and notices that the books in the bookcase over Henry's shoulder look wooden. "Maybe not." He folds up the map and leaves it on the desk for now as he walks over and pulls back on the books, which yanks a lever. The bookcase creaks and cracks open.

"Holy shit!" Henry exclaims. "Just like in the movies! Think there's a secret passage?"

Daryl wedges his fingers into the crack. And tries to swing the bookcase open. He grunts, and Henry helps. Their efforts reveal a door that has two keyed padlocks locks. "See any keys in that desk?" Daryl asks.

Henry rummages through the desk again but comes up empty handed. "We can go back to that garage at that last house," the young man suggests. "It had bolt cutters."

They do, and like a kid on Christmas, wondering what the secret storage room holds, Daryl flexes his muscles and closes the cutters down on the first padlock, grunting as he forces it to snap off.

"Let me do one," Henry insists, and Daryl hands the pliers over.

The boy struggles more than he did – he doesn't have Daryl's strength – but eventually the lock snaps.

Daryl grabs hold of the door handle and pulls it open. He isn't expecting anything  _living_  inside, so he stumbles backward into the desk, his ass hitting the wood hard, when a dessicated walker lunges out at him.

Daryl quickly draws his knife, but Henry's already drawn his. The young man stabs his blade into the side of the walker's head. He yanks it back out with a slurp and the walker slumps at Daryl's feet.

Almost as soon as Henry looks down at it, another walker emerges. "Behind ya!" Daryl shouts, and Henry whirls again and dispenses with the growling creature before it registers on him that it was only a little boy, maybe eight years old. Henry's hand slips from the hilt of the knife, and the walker falls with the blade still wedge inside of its forehead. Henry stares at the crumpled mass and the open glassy eyes and makes a strange noise. It occurs to Daryl that he's never killed a child one before.

Daryl steps forward, drags the walker child out of sight, and recovers Henry's knife. He wipes the blade clean and returns it to him.

"Sorry," Henry mutters, sliding the knife back into his sheath. "I just…" He breathes in and shakes. "I haven't felt anything in  _so long_. You know…I mean…killing one."

"Mhmhm." Walkers became cockroaches long ago, their former humanity long forgotten. But it's hard not to remember when it was once a child. "S a'ight."

Henry turns and looks through the open doorway. "What the hell? They were locked in there?"

"Mother n' child. Daddy was probably protectin' 'em from someone or somethin'. He was gonna come back for 'em maybe, but he ended up dead and never did."

"And they starved to death?" Henry asks.

Daryl shakes his head and glances at the bodies. "Think Mama shot the kid when Daddy didn't come back after a few days 'n they couldn't get out. 'N then she shot 'erself." He walks inside. "Guns. Ammo."

Henry follows him. "Canned food. Water. Booze. Are those MREs?"

"'S a bunker. Small one, but…"

There's lots to loot still, and they don't have a means to transport it, so they take only a few things, shut it back up, and close the bookcase.

They leave the study and have their pilfered lunch in the kitchen – whiskey, which makes Henry hiss - and an MRE each. The expiration date on the MREs is three years ago, but because they were stored in a cool, dry place, and they know some of these things can last five years past the expiration date, they chance it.

Daryl has the mac 'n cheese, and it reminds him with a strange pang of the great  _before_. Not that his life was better before the Collapse – in fact, it's better now – but with that reminder comes the reminder of all that humanity has lost.

"I wonder if there are more secret bunkers in the other houses?" Henry asks between bites.

"Have the supply runners check when they come," Daryl tells him. "Can't haul much anyhow."

Henry eats and drinks in silence for awhile and seems thoughtful. Daryl assumes he's worrying about Jessica and the pregnancy, but then the young man says, "You know how last names used to mean what people did for a living? Like Smith was a blacksmith and Miller was a miller and all that?"

"Mhmhm."

"I wonder if a hundred years from now, it'll be like that, but last names will be associated with whatever trade our people passed on. Like the Garrisons will be carpenters. And the Hamiltons will be butchers. And the Dixons will be hutners."

"Ain't gonna be no Dixons though."

"What do you mean?"

"I ain't had no kids."

Henry stares at him, his expression morphing from confusion to something like hurt. "What about me and Hershey?"

"Mean kids that'd have my last name."

"Well, what's my last name if it's  _not_  Dixon?"

Daryl takes a slow sip of whiskey and looks at Henry. It's never occurred to him Henry would  _want_  his last name. Daryl never wanted it. If you were known to be a Dixon boy, well, you were known to be a usless piece of shit at worst, trouble at best. He sets down his glass with a clink. "Ya  _want_  my name?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

Daryl's hand tightens a little around the glass and a lump forms in his throat that he has a little trouble swallowing down. He doesn't know what to say, so he mutters gruffly and quickly, "Yeah, well, young Dixon, don't bring no dishonor to the name, ya hear?"

"No, sir. Can't promise the same for  _my_  kids, but I'll try to raise them right." The left side of Henry's face twitches into an uncomfortable smile. "Think I should try to raise this one? That Jessica's pregnant with? Even if it's  _not_  mine? If the dad won't step up."

"Dunno, son. Ya got to fig'r that out for yerself. But I know you'll do the right thing, whatever the hell that turns out to be."

Henry laughs slightly. "Because I'm a Dixon."

"Yeah." Daryl grins. "'Cause yer a fuckin' Dixon."


	17. Chapter 17

The sky threatens snow. Carol snaps the top button of her coat as she heads up the steps of the historic mansion. She hopes the boys don't get caught in the Kingdom for a week. Hershey is already talking excitedly about staying up  _all the way to midnight_  for New Year's Eve, and she could sure use Daryl's help to keep him entertained.

As she enters the house, Roderick Hamilton is coming out. "Good morning, Carol," he says. "I was just dropping off my report on the state of agriculture. Things are looking up since I implemented that rotation system."

Roderick is good at what he does, as the Director of Agriculture, and Carol supposes she could lose the mayorship to a worse man, but she could also lose it to a  _better_  one. Maybe she shouldn't have talked Aaron out of running. Roderick has spent too much time inside these gates and is too insular, she thinks, too complacent about their safety.

"I'll look it over," she assures him, and then watches as he clatters down the stairs and makes his way over to where the launderers are hanging clothes to pump hands and win votes.

[*]

Judith, not having expected a visit from Daryl so soon after the last one, greets him with more than her usual zeal. He gives her a bear hug and sets her back on her feet. Daryl loves his boys, Henry and Hershey, but there's will always be a special place in his heart for his Little Ass Kicker, the first baby he ever held in this world, the one he was the very first to feed.

"Ready for a rematch?" he asks, tapping down the hat on her head.

"Range is closed from Christmas to March," she tells him. "But I can still beat you at five card stud."

Daryl chuckles. "We'll see 'bout that."

They set a time to play and Daryl goes looking for the King to arrange a trade, while Henry vanishes, head bent and looking nervous, to confront Jessica.

Daryl finds Ezekiel in his "throne room," in the armchair to the side of the folding Council table with its blue plastic chairs, with Michonne on his lap. They're sucking face like a couple of teenagers and Daryl steps back toward the door, but hits a theater seat in the process and curses at the sudden jab of pain.

Michonne slides off Ezekiel's lap.

"Sorry," Daryl mutters. "Though this was a place of business."

As Ezekiel rises from his throne, Michonne smirks and says, "Well, we  _were_  getting busy. What brings you here?"

[*]

Daryl doesn't see Henry for the rest of the day or at the communal dinner, but it's eaten in shifts in the cafeteria. He plays poker with Judith and chess with R.J. and loses at both, though only at the poker  _intentionally_.

He gives into Jerry's urging to "come see the baby," and just like before, it's a plump ugly thing. He tries to think of something nice to say. "Looks like he's a good eater."

"Oh, yeah, he's the best eater." Jerry pats his belly and grins. "So am I."

"Yes, dear," Nabila says indulgently, "but at some age that ceases to be a compliment."

Henry must spend the night either at Jessica's or at one of his old friend's rooms, because he doesn't come to the trailer Daryl's been assigned, the one he shared with Carol the last time they were here. It's only been a day, and he's surprised to find he misses her, that he can actually feel the absence of her warmth beside him. He doesn't sleep well, but when he does, he sleeps in late.

He's awakened by a tumult on the basketball court outside the trailers, the sound of men shouting. Loading his crossbow, he spills out of the trailer door to find Henry and some man fighting. They're surrounded by a half circle of men and women who are watching the fight.

Henry lands a solid punch and blood spurts from the man's nose. Daryl stands at the bottom of the stairs and watches the fray as Ezekiel strides across the other side of the court toward the scene. He stops beside Daryl and asks, "What started this? What's going on?"

"Dunno."

"Well, aren't you going to stop Henry? He's your son."

"'M sure he's got his reasons."

Ezekiel shakes his head, struts on, and brakes up the fight. Soon enough, he's walking with Henry, the man, and Jessica toward one of the school buildings.

Daryl turns and disappears inside his trailer to pack up his gear, and then he heads to the cafeteria to see what's for breakfast.

He's sipping coffee made from the Kingdom's own beans – one six ounce cup offered per day per citizen and guest – when Michonne sits down across from him with a tray containing a bowl of oatmeal. "So…" she says. "What do you know about this story that's coming down through the grapevine? Henry?" She raises an eyebrow. "In a fight with the master plumber?"

"Dunno a damn thing," he replies and nods to Michonne's kids as they flank her on either side with their own breakfast trays.

[*]

Daryl returns to the classroom trailer to grab his things, swings his now much lighter after trade pack on his back, and opens the door to find Henry preparing to knock. There's a red bruise beneath the young man's left eye that will probably purple into black by New Year's Eve. He seems in a hurry to leave, his staff in his hand and a pack on his back. "I'm ready to head back if you are," he says.

"Mhmhm." Daryl steps out, spits over the rotting porch rail of the classroom trailer, rubs his nose, and says, "'S head out."

It's not until they stop four hours later to eat in a little wooden house at the side of the road that Daryl finally asks, "So? Hell happened back there?"

Henry fishes around in his tin can of garbanzo beans – which are a bit shriveled but still edible – with a spoon. He shovels several into his mouth, chews like it pains him to do so, and swallows. They're sitting in dusty chairs before the fireplace they've lit to warm their hands and feet before resuming the cold journey home. "Yeah, you were right. I'm not the father."

"Take it that man who's face you were poundin' is?"

Henry nods grimly and then looks up at Daryl, his face all apology. "Look, I'm sorry. I was just going to confront him verbally, but he was so smug I lost control of myself. I didn't handle it like a Dixon. I – "

Daryl lets out one short sharp cough of a laugh. "Ya handled it  _'zactly_  like a Dixon."

Henry ducks his head and smiles. "Mom would say I was being too hotheaded."

"Yeah, well, she's the yin to my yang."

"He's married. The father."

" _Married_?" Daryl asks.

"He already has two kids. I wasn't fighting him just because he knocked her up. When she told him she was pregnant, he told her to find a way to abort it, that he doesn't want anything to do with the baby, that she can't claim it's his, because he doesn't want to ruin his marriage over it."

"Should of thought of that 'fore he stuck his dick in 'nother woman."

"Yeah," Henry agrees. "That's what I said. He told her he'd deny it if she said it was his, that he'd insist she was lying and that they never slept together, and everyone would just think it was mine anyway. So…I confronted him." Henry sighs and slams down the half empty can of beans on the coffee table, which clanks. "I know I don't really have any right to be angry at her. I mean, we never  _said_  we were exclusive. I never asked to be. But I haven't been doing anything with anyone else!"

"Mhmhm…" Daryl agrees, throwing back his canteen and gulping down some water to wash down his lunch. He lowers the canteen to rest on his knee. "Is that for lack of willin', or lack of opportunity?"

Henry drums his fingers on the arm of his chair. "Point taken. But I think I've lost all respect for her. Because he was  _married_. And he has kids. I mean, it would be one thing if us not being exclusive, she was with some  _single_  guy, but – he's  _married_."

"Mhmhm," Daryl murmurs. "So what happens now?"

"We broke up. Me and Jessica. Ezekiel…he gave me a talking to and also to the other man. And he said if Jessica has the baby, the community will make sure it's provided for and that it's the Kingdom's child, and some of that asshole's rations have to go to help provide for it. But Jessica said she's not sure she wants it, even if the Kingdom helps out. She's not sure she wants the responsibility of being a single mother, so I…" He chews his lip again and looks away toward the fire.

"You what?"

"I maybe said I'd adopt it when it's born and bring it to the Hilltop."

[*]

Carol just about loses her mind when Daryl tells her. "He's nineteen. He's too young to be a father. Especially a  _single_  father." She's pacing their bedroom floor, across the deerskin rug before the fireplace.

"His call."

She stops and turns to him, the fire illuminating the soft lines of her still so beautiful face. "Maybe  _we_  should adopt it. And Henry could be the baby's big brother and help us raise it."

Daryl studies her eyes, the joy driving out the worry and burying that hint of sadness that has surfaced at the memory, perhaps, of their own lost baby. "That what you want?"

"Would you be willing? I mean, we're no spring chickens, you and I."

He snorts. "Were we ever?"

"We'd be past seventy when he or she leaves home. If we make it to seventy."

" _If?_  Hell, woman, yer invincible."

"If we don't," she says. "I know Henry will raise him or her, and he'll be older then. More mature." She smiles, walks toward him, and wraps her arms around his neck. "You want to raise a baby with me?"

His tongue snakes out between his lips in a happy smile. "Yeah. Wanna raise a baby with you." The fire crackles and pops as their mouths press together.

[*]

Henry, with obvious relief, agrees to the arrangement. "I just wanted to do the right thing," he tells Carol.

"I know you did."

"But I've felt like there was a vice grip on my chest the last two days. This'll be…this'll be a lot better. But I'll help. I promise. I'll help."

New Year's Day comes and goes. Carol doesn't win the election. She loses by the slim margin of two votes and Roderick assumes the mantle of mayor. Aaron remains Chairman of the Council and promises Carol he'll keep Roderick in line and not let him ignore their security needs. Carol is appointed as the new Director of Interior when the old one grows weary of the job.

She decides it's not such a bad thing. With the baby coming to them, she could use a break from the great weight of the Mayorship. Maybe a two-term break, because Aaron wants to run next time. She can wait to make a bid for her second term until Aaron's done with his first, and by then the baby will be ready for preschool.

She settles against Daryl's side as they sit on the couch now, and he stretches his arm out behind her. Hershey plays with his growing puppy on the rug before the unlit fireplace, as a late spring breeze rustles the curtains lining the open living room window. John, whom they've invited for dinner, rocks in the rocking chair opposite Daryl's temporarily abandoned, worn armchair. They invited Henry for dinner, too, but he said he had a date with Cyndie. That relationship seems to be off to a decent start, and Carol wishes them well. Cyndie's a bit old for him, she thinks…but she's no Jessica.

"So when's the baby due?" John asks.

"Not until late June, but it could potentially come any day now," Carol tells him.

John leans forward in his chair. "Thought y'all should know, this might be the last pity dinner invitation you have to extend me."

"It's not a pity invitation," Carol insists.

"Julie asked me to move back in."

John's letter made an impact on Julie, and they got to talking more openly than they ever had before. Julie and her lover broke up in February, and Julie and John have been taking slow steps toward each other ever since, maybe even dating you might call it.

"Congrats," Daryl tells him.

"I'm happy to hear that," Carol says. "I hope things work out for you two."

"Me too," John agrees as little Huck yelps and licks a laughing Hershey's nose. "Me too."

Carol rests her head on Daryl's shoulder and watches her adopted son play with his puppy. She hopes the girl is a baby, secretly longs for a daughter, but she'll happily take a third boy. Any child will be loved in this home she and Daryl have built with their own hands from the once-living growth of the forest, in this growing community they've helped shape and protect and feed.

She rests a hand on his knee, squeezes, and dreams of growing old together.

**THE END**


End file.
